


Trashy Gay Romance: Happy Ending

by suzvoy



Category: As the World Turns, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Getting Together, M/M, Melodrama, Surprisingly not a crack fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:32:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16144955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzvoy/pseuds/suzvoy
Summary: Reid expects his visit toXavier's School For The Giftedto be an enormous waste of time.He turns up anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fic eight years in the making! I started writing this eight years ago, then thought I lost it forever when my laptop died. This week, I found a copy and finished it \o/ I'll be posting one part every day.
> 
> An As The World Turns/X-Men: First Class crossover (because why not?). Completely AU from ATWT, set sometime after the events of X-Men: First Class, assuming that after Charles got paralysed they started working together. The timelines are, of course, completely whacked. I included some X-Men who shouldn't be there just because and there are probably some missing. Laptops and mobile phones exist in this story, so pick a year of your choosing that includes those ;) This is all from Reid's PoV, so while the Charles/Erik is there, the focus is Luke/Reid.
> 
> My eternal thanks to nel_ani and dvswraatins <3 Feedback would be fantastic.

When the knock came at the door, Reid's first instinct was to grumble in frustration and pause his note-taking. His second instinct was to think was that it was probably one of his neighbours from the apartment building. He certainly hadn't buzzed anyone in and the one thing he has in common with almost all of his neighbours was that they were all pretty good at not accidentally letting strangers into the building.

The guy in the wheelchair and the guy who looked like he wanted to kill him were definitely not who he was expecting.

They were expecting him. “Reid Oliver?” Wheelchair Guy asked in a British accent. “I'm Charles Xavier. This is Erik Lehnsherr.” The names – and the men themselves – seemed vaguely familiar, but he certainly didn't know them. “May we have a moment of your time?”

Reid was all set to tell them he wasn't buying whatever what they were selling – and also demand to know how they'd gotten into the building – when Lehnsherr held his a hand, spread his palm, and the pen Reid still absently held in one hand flew into Lehnsherr's waiting grasp.

So. Mutants, then.

Reid let them in. Not because he particularly wanted to hear whatever it was they had to say – though he was somewhat concerned that somehow they'd found out the specifics of his abilities – but his neighbours had no idea he was a mutant and he'd prefer to keep it that way.

It made sense, now, why they seemed familiar. He'd seen the so-called _X-Men_ on the news and in newspaper articles enough times, usually in the middle of some catastrophe, and usually wearing truly appalling uniforms.

“What do you want?” he demanded, as soon as he'd closed the door and turned to face them. They could only be here because they knew he was a mutant, too.

“Nothing from you,” Lehnsherr said, who rolled his eyes when Xavier told him to stop.

“Erik is right, though, Mr Oliver,” Xavier continued, “we don't want anything, other than to let you know we exist, and we're here if you need support.”

Was this guy for real? “You give this pitch to all the mutants, or just the cute ones?”

“As many as we can find,” Xavier answered. “When Erik and I decided we were best working together, we both agreed that all mutants should be offered help, or as much as we could manage. Some make their way to us themselves. Some want nothing to do with us. Some are impossible to find, even for me. And some just need to be told that they're not alone,” he finished, studying Reid significantly.

Did this idiot actually think he knew a thing about Reid? Despite the fact that, from what Reid understood, Xavier was meant to be some kind of telepath? They were complete strangers, and Charles Xavier wasn't doing or saying anything that made Reid want to change that situation. In fact, Reid found it more than likely that Xavier only thought he knew anything at all about Reid because he'd been reading Reid's mind without permission.

“Okay, well,” Reid clapped his hands together, “you've said your spiel, I've – tragically – had to listen, and now you can leave.” Reaching back to open the apartment door, Reid gestured outside. “Thanks for visiting, have a wonderful trip home.”

Sighing, Lehnsherr headed straight for the door. “Well, this was a waste of time.”

Xavier followed behind, though at a slower pace, producing a business card as he paused by Reid. “Just in case,” he offered. “Whether you need help, or you're just curious – you're always welcome.”

Reid took the card, and told himself it was only because it was the fastest way to get Xavier out the door.

“Have a little faith in people, Mr Oliver,” Xavier advised as he wheeled out of the apartment, which only made Reid snort.

He'd lost his faith in people years ago.

*

He should've never taken the card, because it haunted him for weeks. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away which only made him annoyed at his own weakness. He'd spend entire hours staring at the drawer where he'd placed the damn thing, knowing it was the key to a place where there were other mutants, probably living openly, probably living without fear.

Reid had always been curious, even when he didn't want to be.

His writing went to shit and, in the end, he gave in and told Katie he was taking some personal time.

Katie had been dumbfounded, which he couldn't really blame her for.

So despite his own best interests and everything he'd been telling himself since their visit, a little more than two months later Reid found himself on a plane - with the help of his best friend, Mr Prozac - coming in to land at Westchester County Airport.

He mentally castigated himself the entire flight, but that didn't stop him passing through security, picking up his small suitcase and hailing a cab. Reid had no intention of facing either Charles Xavier or Erik Lehnsherr tired from a plane journey - they were the type of men you wanted to be in full and complete charge of your faculties with - so rather than go straight to this so-called school, he had the cab drop him off at the above-average hotel he'd booked himself into.

After consuming the best of the choices from the room service menu and indulging in ninety minutes of trashy but stress-free television, he crashed for the rest of the night.

Morning arrived with five voice mails from his agent. Reid deleted every single one - he'd made his position entirely clear and he wasn't contacting Katie until he got back - and was extremely pleased with himself for leaving his cell phone turned off after the flight.

One large breakfast later, Reid resigned himself to his fate and took a cab to _Xavier's School For The Gifted_ \- still an unbelievably pretentious name, in his opinion. Well, he attempted to take a cab there, but when he announced his destination the cabbie visibly paused, then turned and looked at Reid over his shoulder. "Buddy, if you're planning on going there, you need to take some clothes with you."

Reid frowned at that bizarre advice. "Why?"

"As soon as the sun even hints that it's going down, there ain't a cabbie anywhere in the state who'll drive out to that place. You go out there for the day, you stay the night."

Muttering to himself, Reid nonetheless took the cabbie's advice and supposed he should've been grateful that the guy waited while he went up to get his bag. However, when the driver spent the entire drive constantly going back and forth from staring at the road to staring in the rear view mirror with an expression that said, _So what kind of freak are you, anyway?_ , Reid stopped being grateful.

They'd been on the road about forty minutes when the building came into view. It was some distance away but even from there it was obviously large, old - and expensive. Reid had done his research before leaving Dallas, of course, but it was still more impressive in person than the pictures on the website. As the cab got closer, Reid paid more attention to the surroundings, the picture-perfect rolling green fields, copious trees - and the large-ass satellite dish that frankly spoiled the view.

"So, uh," the cabbie said, the first thing he'd said at all since Reid had got back in the car. His eyes flicked up to the mirror again, staring cautiously at Reid. "Whatcha coming out here for, anyway?"

Reid just kept staring out the window. "If you want any chance of keeping your tip at all-"

"Say no more," the cabbie interrupted quickly, eyes snapping back to the road, "'s none of my business."

That was more like it.

Asphalt crunched into gravel as they turned onto the property and Reid didn't look away from the house - mansion? Castle-in-waiting? - for a second, dumbly handing over a wad of cash as he stepped out of the car, small suitcase in hand and slammed the door shut. He heard the wheels of the cab on gravel as it drove away, but the only thing that tore his attention away from the building was the sound of laughter and movement from the corner of his eye as two figures came running around the side of the building.

They were both fair-haired and gorgeous in entirely different ways. Catching sight of him they paused momentarily, both of their smiles fading. A second later, however, the man - boy? - smiled broadly and headed straight for him.

"Hi!" he greeted far too enthusiastically, stopping a few feet from Reid, looking entirely too appealing in the sunlight with his skin flushed from exercise, still slightly out of breath. The tiny shorts helped - or didn't, depending on your perspective. "You're here for the Professor," he said knowingly.

For once, it took Reid's brain a few moments to catch up with what was happening. "Yes," he blurted out finally. If they were students here... "Are you reading my mind?" The idea was still as disturbing as the first time he'd met Charles Xavier. The thought that anyone could look into his mind without his permission...

"No," the guy replied, grinning in amusement. "You're just..." he looked Reid up and down and somehow it was almost innocent. Almost. "You're special - like me. I can tell."

Reid stared back and actually couldn't help himself. "In more ways than one." He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd been this immediately attracted to someone.

That made the guy smile stupidly some more until the girl next to him cleared her throat. "Obvious, much?"

Blinking, they both looked away from each other to look at her, and then the guy finally shook his head and held his hand out to Reid. "Luke. Luke Snyder."

"Reid Oliver," he replied automatically, shaking Luke's hand. He had a decidedly firm grip - which suddenly pulled away from Reid's.

"Reid Oliver?" Luke asked, his voice going up in surprise. "The _writer_?"

Great. Even here he wouldn't be left alone. "One and the same," he said, speaking again so Luke wouldn't have the opportunity to say anything else about it. "You're very trusting. Stupidly so. Given how mutants are treated most of the time, I could've been anyone."

"Mutants aside, no one ever comes here who doesn't have to," Luke explained after a few moments, "not even the people who want us dead. And anyway, I can take care of myself." Reid didn't doubt it. "I'll take you to the Professor; come on."

What Reid should've been doing was studying the layout of the school, memorising the route he was taking.

He wasn't.

The girl had followed, walking next to Reid, and it wasn't long before she was obnoxiously nudging him with her elbow and speaking quietly. "You're not going to find Charles inside Luke's ass, you know."

Reid considered the ass in question. "Still worth a look. Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Raven," she told him, and what kind of a name was that? "Raven Xavier."

That made Reid pause mentally for a few moments. "Sister?" She and Xavier looked nothing alike.

She nodded. 

Xavier was on the first floor, which made sense given the wheelchair - although Reid thought they may have passed an elevator earlier, an obvious recent addition to the otherwise ancient building. Coming to a stop in front of a huge oak door, Luke knocked and waited for a muffled voice to respond before pushing the door open. Reid stepped in behind him to see Xavier sitting behind a desk, writing something on a pad of paper despite the keyboard and computer monitor stationed in front of him. After a few seconds, he paused writing and looked up.

He didn't seem in the least bit surprised to see Reid, smiling instead. "Reid, isn't it?" he asked, putting his pen down before pressing a button on his wheelchair that moved him around the desk and towards Reid. "Reid Oliver?" He held out his hand.

Reid shook it slowly. "Yeah."

Xavier released his hand, but didn't look away. "Thank you, Raven; Luke." After a few murmurs in reply, the door behind Reid thumped shut and they were alone. "So," Xavier continued, studying Reid intently, "you came."

Reid's fingers twitched; his right hand hanging by his thigh. "Yep."

Maddeningly, Xavier just kept smiling. "Would you like a tour?"

*

The house and grounds were even more impressive than they initially appeared and Reid found himself slightly awed - despite his best efforts to appear nonchalant and unimpressed about everything.

Well, beside Luke's ass.

Speaking of Luke's ass, he could see it again now. He and Xavier were stationed on a well-groomed patio area, staring down at a group of students on the grass - or at least, he presumed they were all students. They all definitely had abilities as they played a bizarre game of touch-football that had rapidly changing rules. It was always Luke who cried foul when someone leapt too high or moved too fast - or in one particular case, teleported with the ball. "No powers!" he complained, laughing nonetheless, and they'd listen to him for all of thirty seconds before someone else cheated.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Xavier's voice said and honestly, Reid had to agree with him. Before Xavier's sudden appearance at Reid's apartment two months ago, Reid had never knowingly met another mutant. To see so many of them together, laughing...if he were the emotional type, it would definitely be affecting him.

Luke finally got his hands on the ball, doing his best to dodge out of everyone's grasp, sometimes appearing to move a little faster than should've been humanly possible. "Everything we do here is worth it for the days like this," Xavier told him. "When he first arrived," he continued and Reid knew immediately he was talking about Luke, "like most of them...most of us..." he corrected, "he was scared. Hopeful. Traumatised in his own way." The rest went unsaid: look at him now. After a few minutes of silently watching the game, Xavier spoke again. "If you don't mind my asking...at what age did you manifest?"

Reid watched a girl suddenly sprout wings and fly away with the ball, to cries of laughter and dismay. He shook his head even as Luke yelled out in rebuke. "8."

Xavier's voice was full of surprise when he replied. "That's early."

"Not early enough," Reid said brusquely, shoving his hands into his pockets. When he realised Xavier was frowning at him, he thought over his words then shook his head - it was a slip. Nothing he wanted to discuss. "Stay out of my head."

"I would never enter your mind without your permissio-”

"Yeah, forgive me if I don't trust you just yet," Reid interrupted. "You haven't tried to brainwash or indoctrinate me yet, so that's about all you've got going in your favour."

Charles stared at him intensely. It was more than a little creepy. "I give you my word. In any case, Erik would kill me." He paused, before adding with a tip of his head, "Metaphorically."

Reid frowned at him. "How would he even know?"

"Oh," he wheeled closer to the edge of the patio, "he _always_ knows. So," he glanced towards Reid again, "what is it exactly that you can do?"

*

When it became clear that Reid would, in fact, have to stay the night, he wasn't surprised. Or impressed. "You're paying for my hotel."

Charles didn't look impressed himself. "It's hardly my fault that it took you two months to finally do what you wanted to do all along, and now you can't get a taxi." When Reid glared at him suspiciously, he chuckled and shook his head. "Not reading your mind. You become remarkably good at reading people even without using 'superpowers'."

Grunting in response, Reid decided to get this all over with as quickly as possible and picked up his suitcase. "Where am I?"

"You'll have your own bed, but you'll have to share a room, I'm afraid. Intake is going up so much that we're due to start construction on extra rooms within a few weeks."

Wonderful. Not only was he trapped here, he wasn't even getting his own room. "You found a construction company that'll do the work?"

He shrugged with a smile. "Who needs a construction company when you have mutants who can manipulate matter?"

Good point. "Okay, then just tell me where to go."

"Up the stairs, third door on the left. Luke's probably in there already, so he'll show you where everythin-"

Woah, woah, wait a minute. "Luke? As in Snyder?" Not that Reid in any way disliked the image of 'sharing a room' with Luke Snyder, but even he had ethics. "He won't mind? It can't be normal procedure for visitors to share with students." It sure as hell didn't feel right; at least to Reid.

Xavier seemed to find something inordinately amusing - which was extremely irritating. "Trust me - Luke is so eager to help anyone that you'll be doing him a favour. Also," he paused for dramatic effect; Reid was sure of it, "he'll find it extremely entertaining that you think he's a student."

And that was how he discovered Luke was faculty, as well as being twenty-five years old.

It barely seemed fathomable as Reid lurked...waited just outside the doorway of their room, watching Luke bop around the room in question to some piece of music only he could hear. He was already in his pajamas, moving paperwork from the desk to his bed, inspecting each piece of paper closely before letting to fall to the bed. Immortality? Ageing at a reduced rate? Reid had been telling himself that Luke had to be at least eighteen so he'd feel like less of a pervert, but Luke barely looked twenty, never mind twenty-five.

Luke finally bopped in the wrong direction and noticed Reid was there. He didn't seem embarrassed at being caught dancing around the room, smiling instead with a piece of paper still in his right hand. "Hey! It's all yours, whenever you want," he gestured towards the spare bed. "We're not quite en-suite in here at the moment - but we'll be working on that soon. Just trying to get our plans finalised. Everyone has an opinion - you should hear Raven go on about it." Reid nodded, not really caring, moving into the room and dumping his bag onto the bed. "Bathroom's two doors down," Luke continued, nodding to the left.

"Do you snore?" Reid asked, turning to face him.

"No," Luke replied slowly, a confused but amused expression appearing on his face. "You?"

"Sometimes," he said honestly, then grabbed his bag and headed for the bathroom before Luke could say anything else. After a quick wash and brushing his teeth, Reid changed into his pajama pants. When he returned to their room, Luke was sitting on his bed, back against the headboard, with a pen and a wad of paper - likely the papers he'd been going through earlier - and did a classic double-take when he saw Reid was shirtless.

Reid would be lying if the reaction didn't please him, but hell if he was about to show it. "Wasn't planning on having someone else in the room when I went to bed."

"Sure," Luke agreed. "Um...I probably have something you can use if you want. I mean, it'll be big on you, but-"

"I'm good," Reid told him, "unless it's an issue for you."

Turning back to his papers, Luke did a pretty crappy job of looking engrossed. "Doesn't bother me, either way."

Placing his bag to the left of the desk beneath one of the large windows in the room, Reid saw a closed laptop, a metal paperweight made in the shape of a quill in an ink pot - and paused when he saw a framed picture of Luke looking even younger than he did now. He was smiling with his arms around two girls - one clearly a teenager, the other not quite. Clinging to Luke's leg was a boy who couldn't have been even five. His family? It was the only picture on the desk and the lack of adults was telling.

Reid didn't ask any questions, didn't even otherwise acknowledge that he'd seen the photograph, instead moving to the other bed and making himself comfortable. From his position on the bed he gave the room a more thorough examination. He didn't see a television anywhere, but there were shelves and bookcases full of books - so full, one of them looked like it was about to burst at the seams. There were few personal mementos, the photograph aside, but there was a framed poster on the wall of an ancient typewriter with words printed beneath it that read,

_For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realisation that he has come upon the right word._

Reid didn't recognise the quote, but it made him turn his head to study Luke anyway, who by now actually seemed to be concentrating on whatever it was he was doing - something teacherly, no doubt. He obviously had a great love of reading, so it wasn't much of a leap to guess he was a writer, too, although not one Reid had heard of. Which was true of a majority of writers, Reid knew, and he also knew that he personally was one of the lucky few.

He could also guess that if Luke did write, he wrote for his love of the written word, not simply because it was something he could do. In that sense, he was already a far better writer than Reid would ever be.

Marking something off with a great flourish, Luke lowered the papers and turned to smile at Reid. "I'm done. Anything else you need to do?" After Reid silently shook his head, Luke got out of bed, placing the papers back on the desk. Walking across the room, he left the door ajar - so the kids always knew they could come to him if they needed anything, he said - and then flicked off the light. The room was dark, but not pitch black with the light still on in the corridor - also for the kids, Reid suspected - and it didn't take long for Reid's eyes to adjust, watching Luke walk swiftly back across the room and climb into bed. "Goodnight," Luke said, after he'd settled down into his pillows, pulling the covers up.

"Yeah," Reid replied, shifting in bed until he was laying down himself and rolled away so he was looking at the door instead of Luke.

When Luke spoke again barely thirty seconds later, it somehow wasn't much of a surprise. "Uh..."

Reid hadn't even closed his eyes yet. "What is it?"

"You should know..." Luke began cautiously, like he was worried about saying whatever it was that he apparently had to say before Reid could go to sleep.

Huffing in annoyance, Reid turned over in bed until he was laying on his other side. He glared at Luke through the darkness. "Know what?"

"Sometimes I have nightmares," Luke told him, who was laying on his own side to face Reid, both hands up near his pillow. "Not very often, these days," he rushed to point out, "but just in case I have one tonight and you hear anything - don't worry about it. It usually ends pretty quickly."

Reid stared at him. It was smart of Luke to warn him, really. "What's your ability?" He was still willing to bet on some kind of slowed down ageing deal.

It wasn't. When Luke didn't seem to respond, Reid frowned at him - and then Reid's whole bed shifted a few inches to the left. Uncharacteristically startled, Reid sat up immediately, staring at his bed in surprise.

Huh. "Telekinesis?" He looked back over to Luke, who hadn't moved at all and still looked pretty damn relaxed, in Reid's opinion. "You must be strong."

"Pretty strong," Luke agreed, "you'd have to have one hell of a mutation to end up being able to hurt me. Which is ironic, really," he said with a shrug, "because everything used to hurt me."

Reid didn't know what to say to that matter of fact statement. And who the hell randomly said that kind of crap to someone they barely knew, anyway?

"What about you?" Luke asked quietly.

Reid found himself pausing before replying, taking the time to lie back down, facing Luke again. "I can heal. Other people."

"Heal?" Luke repeated, sounding fascinated. "Anything?"

"Up to a point." He'd honestly never tried bringing someone back from the dead. Didn't seem worth the potential risk.

"Wow," he continued quickly, sounding genuinely impressed, "I've never met a healer. The Professor's known a couple, but there have never been any here since I arrived. I've met blue people, purple people, people who can make themselves look like anyone, people with wings, people who can create death lasers with different parts of their anatomy," okay, Reid wanted to see that in action, "but someone who can just...heal? That's really nice. It's more than nice," he added quickly, "it's amazing."

Clearing his throat, Reid shifted in bed. "Biologically amazing, yes, but still just a random freak of nature. It's not like I chose to be able to do it."

"No, but you're not about to tell me that you've never used it to help anyone," he insisted, "I won't believe that for a single second. And _that's_ what's amazing."

Luke's faith in him after knowing him for all of one day - most of that time spent apart - was frankly bizarre. And somehow annoying. "Believe what you want," he said, frustrated and not knowing why, turning over so his back was to Luke. "I'm going to sleep."

Luke didn't listen to the implicit request that he _shut the hell up_. "You weren't this much of a dick this morning."

Proof that Luke really didn't know him at all. "Sure I was. You just didn't know me, yet."

*

Just because life liked to fuck with him that much, it was the first night in months that Reid had a nightmare himself. It was nothing so dramatic as screaming out and shooting up in bed - he'd learned a long time ago to tame his responses down. Angus had made it clear that any kind of noise during the night wasn't going to be tolerated, no matter what the cause. Instead Reid woke up gasping, sweat peppering his skin, the images and memories from the nightmare still lingering in his mind, the all-encompassing fear rolling throughout his body. Swallowing, he closed his eyes again, mentally talking himself down.

It was his own fault for taking the damn Prozac, but he couldn't have faced the flight without it.

"You okay?"

The sudden question made Reid snap his eyes open, but he didn't look over at Luke. "That's a stupid question." He was demonstrably _not_ okay and shoved the covers aside, swinging his legs around until he was sitting on the edge of bed that faced the door. Cursing, closing his eyes again, he ran a shaky hand over his face. He hated the lack of control almost more than anything else.

There was the sound of fabric brushing against fabric, and then he felt the bed dip behind him.

Perfect.

"You want some water?"

He sighed. Xavier hadn't been lying when he said Luke liked to help. Anyone. "No."

"Sleeping pills? We don't like to give them out if we can help it, but we have some locked away."

With the kind of mostly-traumatised kids they had passing through here, he imagined they were well-stocked. "No."

It was a while before Luke spoke again. "You want to talk about it?"

" _Hell_ , no."

Chuckling quietly, Luke must've moved closer, because the bed dipped further. Reid braced himself for another refusal.

"How about a snack?"

Five minutes later, Reid was eyeing the sandwich he'd just made with approving eyes. The kitchen was huge; Reid had been suitably impressed when he saw it, having apparently skipped this room on the tour, but now he only had eyes for the sandwich.

Luke laughed as Reid picked the sandwich in question up reverently with both hands. "I think you're actually drooling."

"You would be too, if you were about to eat this piece of culinary perfection." He brought said perfection up to his mouth.

Making a hmming noise, Luke didn't look away from the sandwich. "Can I have a bite?"

Reid didn't even look at him. "Make your own," he instructed, then started eating.

Making a face, Luke nonetheless reached for the bread. "Gee, you're so generous, Mr Oliver."

Washing the first delicious bite down with a chug of milk, Reid lowered his glass back down to the counter they were sitting at. "Like you said," he raised the sandwich again, "I'm a dick."

"Yeah, you need to stop living up to your own hype," Luke retorted. "Now tell me exactly what ingredients to put in it, and how much is it going to raise my cholesterol by?"

Eventually, Luke was forced to concede that the sandwich actually was _delicious_ , and some of the noises he made when eating said sandwich had Reid thinking of ways they could be spending their time together that would be a hell of a lot better even than eating sandwiches. By the time their sandwiches were nothing but crumbs and their glasses of milk were drained, there was no way Reid could miss the way Luke had constantly been studying him speculatively.

"Stop trying to psychoanalyse me," Reid told him bluntly, when he caught Luke looking at him again, "I'm not about to blurt out everything I've ever been through - especially to someone I barely know. You're not my therapist." That made Luke shrug slowly, but something about the way he did it... "Don't tell me you're the school therapist."

"Not exactly," Luke explained, "but the staff all act as therapists in some capacity or another. Completely unofficially, though. Most of the kids are usually pretty clammed up when they get here, but once they start feeling safe, comfortable - eventually, most of them want to talk about what they've been through. A couple of times a week we lead discussion groups for the kids that want to, where they can talk to us and the others about things they went through, different ways they coped - there's a lot of drug and alcohol use in most mutants pasts. Charles has been trying to set something up for an official drug and alcohol rehab area, but no one outside of the school wants to get involved and we can't get the legal permissions we need to do it all properly. A few of us have started degrees in different areas of psychology, but it all takes time. And, yes," he added with a smirk, "for the most part, we have to get our degrees online."

Fighting his own smile, Reid contemplated everything Luke had said. This place really did seem too good to be true, but that wasn't the only thing he'd noticed. "That's the first time I've heard you call him Charles."

Blinking at the sudden subject change, Luke's smile transformed into something more genuine. "I'm so used to the kids being around all the time that I tend to call him Professor by default. Also," he tipped his head to one side, "for a while he was just the Professor to me."

Which meant Luke was a student here before he became staff. He'd been there for more than a few years. "I'm surprised that none of the kids are running around," Reid said, glancing up at the ceiling.

"Oh, we've had plenty of disturbed nights, believe me," Luke told him, "some take a lot longer to settle in than others. But once they do...they like taking responsibility for themselves when they can. Being taken seriously. And part of that is following the rules."

"You have rules here?"

"Just like any school," Luke nodded, then paused. "Well, not just like," he admitted, "I can't imagine any other school has the 'no crawling along the ceiling just to freak people out' rule."

And yeah, Reid had to smile at that one.

After clearing up and placing the dishes in the dishwasher, they made their way back into the corridor and towards the stairs. This time around the door to Xavier's office was open - it hadn't been when they'd come downstairs - and they both moved towards it instinctively.

Xavier wasn't alone. It was the first time Reid had seen Lehnsherr all day, and all he saw of him now was his back as he talked with Xavier. Or, more accurately, argued with Xavier.

"-if he can help, why don't you ask him to-?"

"Not a chance, Erik."

"Stop trying to appear better than everyone else, Charles." He paced to one side of the room. "I know you want your legs back as much as I do."

"Of course I do," Charles replied calmly.

"Uh, yeah," Luke whispered, "we should go. Charles totally knows we're here watching this."

Xavier hadn't even so much as glanced in their direction, but Reid had no doubt Luke knew what he was talking about.

Not that it made him leave. Luke moved away, but he'd only gone a few feet when he realised Reid hadn't moved a step. " _Reid_ ," he hissed.

Reid waved him off without even looking at him. Xavier and Lehnsherr were talking about him - as far as he was concerned, he had every right in the world to hear as much of their conversation as possible. Unfortunately, it seemed the Reid portion of the conversation had come to an end while Luke had been trying to convince him to leave. Xavier and Lehnsherr were positioned on the same side of Xavier's desk now, sharing an intense look.

Finally, Xavier spoke. "Erik, you're not to pressure him. But I will say that it's very sweet that you care so much."

Lehnsherr didn't seem in the least bit amused. "Don't patronise me."

"I'm really not," he argued, "I genuinely find it quite touching."

"Yeah, I'll be touching something else in a minute," Lehnsherr muttered.

Xavier brightened. "Is that a promise?"

Okay, so he was done. Beating a hasty retreat, Reid stepped back quickly and quietly, turning around to come face-to-face with Luke Snyder. Standing there with an outraged expression on his face and his hands on his hips, he looked every inch the angry school teacher and for the first time Reid really could buy that Luke was in a position of authority at the school.

Even though he did look about as terrifying as a cuddly teddy bear.

Reid didn't even bother trying to look innocent. "What?"

*

A large room on the first floor that was apparently used for some of their more 'energetic' lessons - Xavier's words - doubled as a dining hall. Reid was inside that room now, sitting at one of several large tables. Xavier was positioned at the end of the table, currently sharing a detailed history of the school that Reid honestly wasn't paying any attention to. Instead he found himself looking around the room, making a mental note of everything he saw. There were more students in here now than he'd seen outside yesterday, but then he supposed they didn't all take part in one activity together all the time. And he was receiving his own share of curious looks, of course; students and staff alike trying to measure him up, probably trying to figure out exactly what abilities he had.

Realising Xavier had finally stopped talking, Reid took in once again the elegantly decorated room. "So," he said, reaching for his juice, "just how loaded are you?"

Not looking the least bit offended, Xavier smirked slightly instead. "Extremely," he retorted. "Family money," he continued, "and quite honestly, it's a much-needed blessing for the school. I don't know how we'd manage without it." Just as he finished speaking, Lehnsherr appeared behind him holding a plate of food. Xavier couldn't have seen him, but he smiled nonetheless. "Erik has some extremely interesting ideas about how we can procure money in the future, however, should we ever have a funding shortage."

"Most of the them illegal," Lehnsherr shrugged, sitting in the chair to Charles' right, opposite Reid. "But as they keep trying to make our very existence illegal, I figure it's only fair."

Sending Lehnsherr an exasperated yet fond, _I love you anyway, you big dummy_ look - seriously, it was kind of sickening - Charles sipped at his drink and then closed his eyes in apparent satisfaction. "The tea's perfect today," he remarked, which made Erik snatch the cup out of his hand and take a big gulp. Charles barely looked at him, focusing back on Reid. "Erik tends to expect the worst to happen."

"And Charles is ridiculously naive, living in a fantasy world of his own creation," Erik added, shooting Charles a look that said he didn't appreciate Charles constantly speaking for him.

Apparently conceding the point, Charles tipped his head slightly towards Erik. "We try to compromise when we can - it's important for the students that we appear to be on the same page. And regardless of our opposing views, ultimately, we have the same goal. The last thing either of us wants is for anyone to get hurt."

Erik didn't say anything to that, but his gaze fell to Charles' chair, before rapidly moving to Reid. He suddenly glared at Reid with a particularly intense hatred before eating his breakfast with the kind of dedication normal people gave to preparing for a life-changing opportunity.

"Oh, by the way, Reid," Charles said casually, having extricated his cup from Erik's grasp, "I did as you asked and paid for your hotel."

He hadn't been expecting that at all. "Thanks?" He wasn't used to thanking people, either.

"It was no trouble," Charles assured him. "I called last night, apologised for the short-notice cancellation and paid the cancellation fee."

Cancellation? The thanks was decidedly short-lived. "You cancelled my entire stay?"

"Of course."

He sat back in his chair, disbelieving. "For a man who claims to be a professor of genetics, you're astoundingly stupid."

He'd yet to see Charles look offended by anything. "How so?"

"All I wanted you to do was pay for the night I wasn't going to be able to stay at the hotel because I was paying out the money for nothing. I was booked for a _week_."

"Oh, my, I'm terribly sorry," Charles said, lacking any conviction whatsoever. If Erik wasn't smirking into his toast, Reid would eat his metaphorical hat. "Well, I'm afraid to tell you that you've no chance of getting the room back now. The desk clerk actually thanked me for cancelling because there's some last minute convention going on in town. Something about hydroelectric power, I believe."

"Should see if Storm wants to head back to town and sneak in," Erik volunteered, a blatant attempt to make Charles' outright lie sound plausible.

"Seriously?" Reid asked. "You come to me with this idea about mutants helping each other, making a positive difference to the world, showing non-mutants that they don't need to be scared of us - and this is how you do it? By lying and manipulating?"

Charles looked over at Erik, who hadn't said a word. "Do be quiet." Shaking his head in amusement, Erik helped himself to the last of Charles' tea. Turning back to Reid, Charles spoke again. "Only when they're as stubborn as you. I suppose I should apologise, but you know perfectly well what it is that you want, Reid.” He paused, looking off to one side. Then he smiled. "Well, there's timing."

The door at the far end of the room opened, and Luke stepped inside.

It was the first time Reid had seen him since waking - when he'd opened his eyes that morning Luke had already been gone, his bed a mess of wrinkled sheets and blankets. Reid had told himself he wasn't disappointed.

The Luke he saw now was a vast difference to the Luke in sweaty shorts, holding Reid's hand and smiling, or the Luke in goofy pajamas, talking passionately about the school over a midnight sandwich. This Luke was in grey suit pants and a light blue button-down shirt, tucked in at the pants with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The top few buttons of his shirt were undone and though part of Reid's brain, somewhere, made the connection that it was a weekday and Luke was obviously dressed this way to teach, most of his brain was stuck on the image Luke made and the thought that he looked entirely too gorgeous for his own good.

"Interesting," Erik remarked.

"What is?" Reid asked absently, watching as one of the youngest kids ran laughing up to Luke, who grinned hugely at her and didn't object when she threw her arms around him.

"I can't read minds, but even _I_ know what you're thinking right now."

Finally realising what Erik was implying, Reid certainly didn't flush as he pushed his chair back and stood up, walking away in annoyance.

He heard Charles talking as he walked away. "Wonderful, Erik. Well done."

"I didn't see you doing any better."

Walking off his frustration, Reid eventually found himself on the patio, looking out over the grass again. It was another beautiful day already, the sun bright in the sky but with enough of a breeze that the heat wasn't stifling. This time there were only two people down on the grass - teenagers, a boy and a girl - and, for a while, it seemed they were simply staring at the ground and Reid couldn't figure out what the hell was so fascinating. He finally realised exactly what was actually happening when a messy column of earth suddenly thrust out of the ground. Just as the girl raised her hands in success at a job well done, Reid saw movement from the corner of his eye and turned to see Luke walking closer.

He looked away again.

Luke didn't say anything initially, sharing Reid's view of the couple below. By now the girl seemed to be trying to get the column of earth to go back down, but was having more difficulty doing so.

"That's Petra," Luke announced quietly, "she's our newest student."

"That's a neat trick," Reid found himself saying, nodding towards her. The column had sunk about an inch.

"She's what we call a geomorph," Luke explained, "we think eventually she'll be able to move any kind of natural ground covering - sand, stones. But she's still just starting to get to grips with her powers." After a few moments, he turned towards Reid. "You okay? I saw the way you ran out of there."

"Not my therapist," he reminded.

That didn't stop Luke at all. "No, but I am your roommate for the time being. And I'd rather we work out any issues now instead of leaving it to tonight, so after a hard day of work, we can just go straight to bed with nothing to worry about."

Nothing to worry about? What kind of fantasy world was Luke living in? "I didn't run."

"My mistake," Luke retorted warmly, "you removed yourself from the room at great speed. You were so fast I thought you'd developed a new power."

The edges of Reid's mouth quirked up. Why did Luke have to be so damn _likeable_? "Charles and Erik..."

"Yeah?"

"They're...annoying." Okay, so that wasn't very specific as Reid tended to find most people annoying. But Charles and Erik were particularly annoying.

Luke didn't disagree with him. "They can be incredibly annoying," he nodded, which frankly came as a surprise. He was smiling, though. "Charles has this whole 'saviour of mankind' image going on, but most of the time he loves nothing more than messing with people's head. And that's without even using his powers to get into their heads. And as for Erik..." he paused, contemplating. "Actually," he said eventually, "he's a lot like you."

That was a comparison he enjoyed. "Incredibly annoying?"

Smiling softly, Luke shook his head. "He's used to being on his own," he said perceptively, before looking towards Petra again, "looking after himself. But then that's true of most of the mutants who come here."

Reid should've been annoyed at yet another analysis of his character, but there was something about the way Luke spoke; the wistful tone to his words. "Including you?"

Luke didn't look at him, but Reid saw him blink heavily a few times. "I've been very lucky," he said eventually, "I had a big family when I was a kid. And now I have a big family here. I have to get ready for class," he added quickly, turning and walking away. It was the first time Reid had seen him openly upset about something and he found himself actually about to call out after him.

But what the hell could he do? Luke was right - he was used to being on his own. He barely knew how to socialise with anyone. He had no idea what would be the right thing to say.

Reid spent the next hour trying to find an empty room - hell, he'd settle for an empty bed - at any hotel within driving distance, but they all claimed to be full from the convention. Reid wouldn't put it past Charles to have mind-whammied all of them into actually believing there was a convention, or actually setting up an entire convention just so Reid would be forced to stay at the school for the rest of his visit.

It may have been possible he was getting a little paranoid.

He spent most of the day purposefully avoiding Charles, Erik and Luke, instead sitting in on lessons that neither of them were teaching. It ended up being more interesting than he wanted it to be. There were a mix of lessons where students practised or refined their powers, and lessons they'd learn at regular schools. Maths. History. Geography. Reid had met most of the teaching staff the previous day - the guy with the feet had been an eye-opener, despite the blurry videos Reid saw sometimes on the news - and at the end of each lesson he found himself asking questions. Raven lead a discussion group that was eye-opening in a different way, when she walked into the room and promptly turned blue-skinned, orange-haired - and practically naked. This came as a surprise to none of the students present, who listened attentively as she spoke about practical, non-violent ways of fighting for acceptance. It was a contentious subject, several students repeatedly asking why they shouldn't just 'force' non-mutants to accept them and though she didn't quite lose control of the debate, by the time the kids filed out of the class she looked worn out and drained, sagging back against the expensive-looking desk.

Reid lingered. Folding her arms across her chest, she sighed and looked at him, nodding towards the door. "There are always a couple that end up never fitting in. It's normal to have questions, but when they stay that angry, you just know..." She trailed off.

Reid guessed where she'd been heading. "That they don't belong here?"

She made a face. "The irony is, I know what they're going through. I used to be that angry. Ask Charles all the same questions."

"What happened?"

She shrugged. "Charles got hurt."

To Reid, it felt like that would be something that would've made her even angrier and it seemed like she was going to say something else. When she didn't, he spoke again instead. "You spoke about mutants being proud of who they are, but this is the first time I've seen you like...this."

"And what, you think it's a double standard?" she asked darkly. "If I don't practise at it regularly, it gets harder and harder to do. And if I wasn't proud of who I am, why would I teach to a class of students in my natural form?"

Reid suspected she still had some anger issues. "Is the blonde the only form you can take?"

Seconds later, Reid was staring at his own smirk. "That would be a no," his voice from the doppelgänger told him. While Reid was still staring at her in - frankly - shock, she morphed into Charles, Erik, the guy with the feet, most of the rest of the staff, then started in on the students.

"Okay," Reid found his voice eventually, "stop showing off."

Back in her natural form, she was laughing at him when the door to the room opened and a woman in dark glasses stepped inside. Seeing her, Raven's entire demeanour changed. She was still happy, but she went from laughing at Reid being flustered to being thrilled to see someone. "Irene!"

Reid had been introduced to Irene briefly yesterday. Obviously blind, she nonetheless seemed to have no problem getting around at all, like she already knew where everything was. Reid just assumed that, like most blind people, she'd trained herself the layout of any building she'd been in for any period of time.

"How was it?" Irene asked warmly.

"Pretty bad, just like you said," Raven said, sighing.

Nodding sympathetically, Irene reached out a sure hand, placing it on Raven's forearm. "Lorelei will be leaving soon." They shared a moment of what seemed like sympathy and just as Reid was starting to feel awkward and plotting ways to get out of the room without being noticed, Irene turned her head to look at him. It was definitely unnerving. "Someone else is here."

And that was his cue. "Reid Oliver," he announced and started walking in their general direction, hoping he'd be able to get past them and out the door quickly.

She nodded her acknowledgement. "We met in passing yesterday. It's nice to meet you officially - Irene Adler." She held out her hand. "I hope you're finding the school everything you want it to be."

Unable to ignore the offer, he shook her hand. "Sherlock Holmes fan?"

"Something like that," she replied, releasing his hand.

There was a story behind that. "Well, the school's been interesting, I'll give it that much," he admitted. "But it doesn't really matter what I want it to be. I'm only here for a week."

Irene smiled. Kind of _knowingly_. "Of course."


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow, Reid actually managed to avoid talking with all the people he wanted to avoid talking with for most of the day. Sometimes he saw them in the distance, or travelling down a corridor, but for the most part he was left to his own devices.

He would've been proud of his skill at being stealthy if he didn't know for a fact that Charles was no doubt aware that he wanted to avoid him, so was probably going out of his way to give Reid some space. Living with other people with abilities wasn't all it was cracked up to be - it made you start to doubt your own level of awesomeness.

Eventually, though, Reid knew it was pointless to continue acting this way forever. After eating dinner - making sure he sat on the other side of the room, which led to an not-entirely-boring discussion with a guy called Alex who taught PE but, more importantly, could shoot lasers from his body and promised to show Reid tomorrow - he returned to their room, knowing Luke would find him there eventually.

Not having much else to entertain himself with, he started looking through Luke's disturbingly large collection of books. There was a wide variety to choose from - ancient classics, modern classics, explicit gay romances to graphic novels and everything in-between. Reid had just found something particularly interesting when he heard soft footsteps and turned his head, watching Luke walk into the room.

"Hey," Luke said casually, moving over to the laptop and lifting the screen, making the monitor spring to life. "Good day?"

"Define good," Reid retorted, reaching out to tug free one of the books in question, hearing a chuckle and the dull clutter of fingers typing on a keyboard. There were so many books it really was jammed in, taking some effort to free it. Not noticing that the sound of typing had stopped, he blinked a few times when he realised Luke was now standing next to him.

"It's a stupid amount of books, really," Luke conceded, looking at the bookcase, "but getting rid of any of them just seems...wrong, you know?" He glanced back at Reid, shrugging. "Charles has his own but this acts as another kind of unofficial library for the kids to use. They know they can help themselves to anything."

"Anything?" Reid queried, nodding towards what he thought of as the trashy erotic gay romance section.

"Depends how old they are," Luke grinned, somewhat bashfully, "and at least it's on the top shelf." He prattled on some more about how Hank had talked him into organising them by genre simply because no one could ever find what they were looking for, when he finally caught sight of the book Reid was holding. Reid glanced down at it, too, studying the familiar cover of fallen chess pieces scattered across a board.

_En Passant  
R Oliver_

"I _did_ recognise your name when we first met," Luke pointed out.

"That you did," Reid agreed. "I just didn't think you'd have all my books."

"You're a good writer," Luke shrugged. "You know, it's funny. Knowing you now, in person, and thinking over what the books were like..." he smiled faintly. "I can tell that you wrote them. I mean I know you did anyway, but knowing you now it's so easy to think...yeah. Reid wrote those books. It makes sense."

He was probably going to hate himself for asking this question. "Why's that?"

"Your writing is...blunt. Honest. But with a lot of restrained emotion." He eyed Reid significantly.

There he went again. "I'm average at best," Reid retorted in a tone that would brook no argument, turning to squeeze the book back onto the shelf. "Writing's easy - anyone can do it. You just have to have enough talent to hook people in, and then they're yours for the taking."

"That's a cynical view of the writing process."

"You may not have noticed, Mr Snyder - although God knows how - but I tend to have a cynical view of just about everything. I'm a good writer, but that's all I am. I write because it's something I do with enough talent to make money - and believe me, I know how lucky I am. But that's all I'll ever be. I don't have enough talent or care enough about writing to ever be a great writer."

When he finally turned back, Luke had his arms folded across his chest, frowning at him. "Then why be a writer at all? Given what you can do..."

He knew where this was going. "Why not be a nurse? A doctor? A job where it would be 'easy' to heal people?" Luke nodded. "Tried that. Didn't work out. Why the hell do you keep trying to figure me out?" He was determined to turn this conversation around so he wasn't the one being analysed.

Lowering his head for a moment, Luke smiled, clearly embarrassed. "Sorry," he said, tipping his head back up, unfolding his arms. "I've always been fascinated by what makes some people tick. I guess it's the writer in me. And lucky for you..."

"I'm one of those people," Reid finished.

"Apparently," he admitted. "I used to drive Erik crazy."

He had no problem imagining that whatsoever. "I'm sure you did."

"My dad used to say..." Luke stopped, mid-sentence, face falling as if only realising what he'd just said. "Anyway," he said, turning around as abruptly as he changed the conversation, "I have to finish something. Help yourself to the books."

Reid found that particular reveal fascinating, despite his attempts to not give a damn about Luke whatsoever, and-

"Did you make my bed?" Luke was standing facing away from him, hands on his hips as he stared at the bed in question.

Turning back to the bookcase, Reid decided to take Luke up on his offer - but now he had to decide exactly what to read. "It was messy," was all he said, fingers grasping and tugging hard on the first likely suspect.

*

When he woke the next morning, this time Luke was awake but still in the room. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Reid watched through groggy eyes as Luke fastened the last button on his shirt - still low enough to display a hint of chest hair - and rolled up his sleeves. Reid appreciated greatly the fact that Luke didn't just wear short-sleeved shirts. That done, Luke opened a drawer in his desk and took out what Reid immediately recognised as a daily pill dispenser. Emptying the contents of one small plastic box into his hand, Luke brought the hand up to his mouth, then swallowed the pills with a sip from the glass of water he had sitting on the corner of the desk. Mid-gulp, he finally realised Reid was awake. Pausing momentarily, he produced an awkward smile around his swallow, and when he was finished he put the glass back on the desk.

"Anti-rejection meds," was all he said, a statement that opened up a whole world of questions Reid told himself he wasn't going to ask. Luke grinned at him, teasing. "Wanna come to school with me today?"

Reid spent the entire day sitting at the back of Luke's English class. It came as no surprise that Luke was a good teacher. A great teacher, even. He loved language and literature, and his passion for it rolled off him whether he was explaining a quotation, explaining writing theory or debating an analysis a student disagreed with. He was firm but kind in his responses, and it was plain the entire class thought he was the best thing since sliced bread with chocolate spread slathered on top.

Annoyingly, Reid knew how they felt.

When he assigned homework, the groups inevitably moaned and complained, but they all made a note of what the homework was and Reid would honestly be surprised if any of them didn't turn it in on time. During lunch and after the last class of the day, they talked. Reid asked the same questions he'd asked the other teachers, but he asked different questions, too. They talked about how the school was regulated (being a privately-owned and funded school, it wasn't. The government didn't know what to do with them and tended to default to letting them take care of themselves. Charles had a friend at the CIA who helped smooth things over most of the time), the difficulties of teaching classes with a wide age-range (they didn't have enough students yet to make separating them by age practical, but they were planning for the future) and what happened to mutants when they left the school (they couldn't all stay there forever - most didn't want to - and Charles offered emotional and financial support wherever possible).

They were hunched over a table together over dinner, debating the merits of teaching foreign languages when Alex strode up to the table.

"Hey, Oliver. You wanna see what I got, or not?"

Opening his mouth, Reid was about to give a honest 'no' - it was refreshing talking with someone as spirited as Luke - when Luke spoke first.

"Oh," he said, sounding - and looking - disappointed, before sitting up straight in his chair. "I have kind of monopolised you today - I didn't realise. Sorry." As far as Reid was concerned, Luke had nothing to apologise for. "I have some lesson plans I really need to work on tonight anyway, so it's probably a good idea. And I _know_ you want to see what Alex can do," he encouraged, smiling.

Before Reid really knew what was going on, he was being hustled out of the chair, Alex's hand slapping firmly on his shoulder, his voice telling Luke that he'd have Reid back to him in no time. A minute or so later, Reid was just realising what that could've implied, but forgot everything he'd been thinking the moment Alex produced a huge beam of red light from his chest that obliterated the target situated a hundred feet away.

The air somehow felt scorched around them, the hairs on Reid's arms standing on end.

"Impressed?" Alex asked cockily, and yeah - Reid was.

He was also kind of disappointed and didn't analyse why.

Later that night, most of the students and staff were in the classroom that doubled as the entertainment room, clustered around the huge television as they watched a movie together. It was something with explosions and women wearing barely anything – Reid had tuned out ages ago.

Luke was still off doing his lesson plans or something, so rather than intrude on his work, Reid sat himself in an expensive-looking chair - which described pretty much all of them, really - in the furthest corner of the room, flicking through a book he'd found on one of the bookshelves in the room. He'd read the opening line about ten times when a chair, completely unnoticed by everyone else, floated across the room and lowered itself until it was touching the floor next to him. When Erik walked over to join him a few moments later, Reid rolled his eyes.

"I convinced Charles we needed some modern furniture, too," he announced, folding himself neatly into the chair.

"You just wanted chairs with metal frames," Reid pointed out, as someone died quite spectacularly on the television.

"Strangely enough, Charles said the same thing." He turned his head to met Reid's gaze. "He gave in anyway."

Reid got the point. They knew each other well, they did things for each other, they were the utterly un-romantic love of each other's lives, etc etc (Reid suspected Charles would describe it differently). "You're not going to ask me to heal his spine," Reid remarked as a man on-screen flung himself from the top of a skyscraper.

"No," Erik confirmed, as the man ridiculously survived the fall by grabbing on to an enormous banner that was, for some reason, hanging on the side of the building. "I'm not."

"Just like I'm not telling you, it's a lot more complicated than you think it is."

Luke walked into the room, smiling when he saw Reid. He took a step towards them then seemed to think better of it, eventually perching himself on the far edge of the sofa.

It didn't go unnoticed by Erik. "I think you think everything's a lot more complicated than it is," he remarked and that was the last thing that he said as he got to his feet, crossing the room. He walked straight over to Luke, leaning close to say something to him. Reid couldn't hear anything over the television, but Luke shot Reid a quick look and then nodded back at Erik, before walking across the room himself and sitting in Erik's chair.

They looked at each other for a moment.

"What did he say?" Reid nodded towards Erik.

"That Charles would think we're 'terribly bad' hosts for not ensuring you have company."

Reid's lips quirked. "Your British accent is not something that should be repeated."

"Oh, yeah?" Luke demanded good-naturedly, turning his body in the chair so he was facing Reid more directly. "I bet yours isn't any better."

He hadn't done anything as _silly_ as accents since his childhood but he nonetheless found himself being sucked into a competition of who could produce the most atrocious impression of Charles. They were both absolutely useless and in the end they had to call it a draw when Raven shushed them for making too much noise. Luke grinned stupidly the entire time and Reid more-than-suspected that he was doing the same.  
It was the first time he went to bed happy in years.

*

The week continued in that vein. Reid sat in on regular lessons and mutant lessons - as long as the students in question didn't object - and talked with staff about various issues. Virtually all of his down-time was spent with Luke, who talked openly about any school subject Reid wanted to discuss. Eventually, their conversations went off into a tangent about their personal philosophies in different areas and subjects. On one particular night they got onto the subject of growing up not only as a mutant, but as a gay mutant and everything that went with it. The tone turned sombre, fast, but for once when Luke mentioned his family, he didn't try and change the subject.

Reid barely said anything at all - he wouldn't know what to say - and it seemed to be what Luke needed.

"Mom was terrified," he said, sitting on the end of his bed, staring off to one side at some ancient memory. "Not of me, not of what I could do - but what it would mean for me, you know? I'd never been able to hide my mutation from them - the first time I ever moved anything with my mind, I was sound asleep. They knew about my powers before I did," he smiled, slightly. "And then here I was, coming out to them. I was a gay mutant in a small town in Middle America. She was so scared and...that made it easy, so easy for Damian." Finally looking at Reid and taking in his confusion, he continued speaking. "It's a really long story - trust me, you don't want to know - but let's just go with: he's my biological father, and he decided that no son of his was going to be gay, or a mutant. I was going to be a _real_ man."

An uncomfortably feeling slithered down Reid's spine. "Why don't I like the sound of that?"

"For good reason," Luke retorted. "He managed to talk to Mom into it - and I still choose to believe, to this day, that she didn't know what it was really about - and I was essentially kidnapped and taken to..." His voice wobbled. "Did you know there are camps that specialise in 'reforming' gay mutants?"

He had heard of them; of the things that happened there and the thought that Luke went through any of that...his hands unwittingly turned into fists. "Your nightmares must make mine seem like cartoons."

Producing a surprised laugh, Luke wiped at his face. "Don't worry," Luke assured him, "I'm not about to ask you to compare notes."

Whether he wanted to or not, the opportunity to compare notes came the day before Reid was due to go home. The last couple of days he'd been doing a quite excellent job of ignoring what leaving meant in terms of him and Luke - if there even was a him and Luke. There was definitely a something but Reid didn't have any idea whatsoever what he was doing or what he was supposed to do. Or if he even really wanted to do it. When it came to this kind of stuff, he had no practical experience whatsoever. Given Luke's past, he suspected the same was true of him, so they really were up the creek without a paddle.

Reid was pondering what the hell he was supposed to do with his life on his way to another class, when the door to Charles' room burst open, and everyone who must've been inside came flying out - some of them literally.

His body tensed. "What's going on?"

"Mr Snyder's hurt!" one of the kids yelled even as he ran along the corridor, a sentence that made Reid's throat close up. "The Professor felt it!"

The Professor in question wheeled out of his room and met Reid's gaze. He tipped his head to one side almost sympathetically, and then there was a sudden voice inside Reid's mind:

_It's not life-threatening._

Which did nothing to stop Reid from actually _breaking out into a run_ , until he was slamming through the doors that led outside, following hot on the heels of the others. Luke wasn't too far away, sitting up on the grass. He was talking, conscious and generally seemed embarrassed about the fuss being made over him, saying things like "I'm fine," and "It was my own fault," and "Did you do your homework yet?" over and over again.

Slowing to a normal walking speed, Reid didn't know how to deal with or express the level of relief he felt and eventually just stood still, staring at Luke dumbly.

When Luke saw him, he stopped babbling mid-sentence, instead smiling up at Reid wryly. "I'm a total klutz."

Reid started walking again, moving closer. The crowd around Luke must've parted, but he didn't pay much attention to it. "What happened?"

"I've been trying to use my powers to move...well..." he gestured towards himself. "Me."

In theory, it sounded like that'd be pretty damn useful, being able to psychically move yourself any place you wanted to be, no matter how high or awkward to get to. In practise, however... "How's that working out for you?" Reid asked, relaxing as he put his hands on his hips.

"Not so great," Luke admitted, holding a hand out. "A little help?"

He wasted no time at all in getting Luke to his feet, who hissed and leant against Reid as soon as he was up. "I think it's broken. Or at least fractured," he continued, looking down at the offending left ankle. Taking most of Luke's weight and wrapping an arm around his back, Reid started hobbling towards the building with him. The Professor was waiting for them in the doorway of the main entrance and as Reid watched, Raven darted out past him.

She jogged straight up to Luke. "How bad?"

He continued hobbling forward. "Broken, I think. And tell Irene not to blame herself - I know what she's like. It's not her fault she can't control what she does or doesn't see." That piece of information filled in what Reid had already begun to suspect.

Raven nodded. "Want me to take you?" No doubt, she was a lot stronger than she looked and could probably carry him the entire way.

Smiling, Luke glanced over at Reid. "We're good. I'm not in any rush."

Five minutes later, writhing around on an infirmary bed, Luke had changed his tune. "I lied. Give me the painkillers. Give them to me _now_."

"Luke, you know it's not that simple," Charles reminded him, maddeningly calm, "we have to make sure we don't give you anything that had a negative reaction with your meds."

"I don't care if I start vomiting, or break out into a rash - hell, I'll even take the diarrhoea," Luke told him bluntly. "Just make the pain stop."

Charles still kept calm. "We also have to make sure we don't give you anything that puts any more pressure on your kidneys-"

Yeah, Reid really didn't have a choice anymore. "I can help," he interrupted, positioning himself next to Luke's leg. When he looked up, Luke was staring at him curiously. "Just get me a chair," Reid said, then nodded towards the doorway, where most of the students were staring inside, "and some privacy."

With barely a blink of Luke's eyes, the door slammed shut and the nearest chair went skidding across the room, slotting itself perfectly beneath Reid as he sat down. "You are good," he remarked, getting himself into as comfortable a position as possible. He met Luke's gaze, ignoring Charles and Raven, holding his hands over Luke's ankle. "Brace yourself. This will be...difficult."

Luke frowned, but nodded with determination.

Reid lowered his hands, concentrating. Luke hissed but tried not to jerk away, and Reid felt the warmth start to spread from his hands and-

_"Uncle Angus!" Reid came running into the kitchen, uncharacteristically noisy. "I have to show you something! Kathy Rogers hurt herself when she fell over today, and-"_

_"Not now, kid," Uncle Angus brushed him off, flicking through the newspaper on the table. "I've had a long day - I'm beat. Give your uncle some peace-"_

_"But this is really important!" Reid yelled, making Uncle Angus flinch._

_Pausing, Uncle Angus brought the thumb and index finger of his right hand up to the bridge of his nose. Reid waited expectantly, hopefully, until finally his uncle lowered his hand. "Okay, kid. What's so damn important?"_

_Grinning, Reid quickly reached out and pinched Angus' forearm. Hard._

_Standing up immediately, Uncle Angus' chair screeched across the floor. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you little brat?!"_

_For once Reid was too excited to be scared. "Wait! Just wait! I'll show you, I promise." Uncle Angus still looked really angry, but he seemed to realise that it really was important, so when he said nothing, Reid put his hand on his Uncle's forearm and closed his eyes. His hand got all warm like it had last time, and then Reid felt his arm start to hurt in the same place he'd pinched his uncle's arm. Just like last time, too, when his knee started to hurt when he helped Kathy._

_Cursing, Uncle Angus yanked his arm away from Reid's hand, making Reid open his eyes and stare up at him. His uncle stared at the arm, rubbing a hand over the area where the mark had been and was now completely clear. "What did you just do?" Uncle Angus asked quietly._

_"I fixed you!" Reid yelled, overjoyed. "I made you better! I can make people better now!" Reid thought he must've been one of those mutants people were always scared of and saying bad things about, but he could help people. This couldn't be bad._

_"You made me better?" His uncle asked, and he sounded angry. Reid didn't know why he was angry. This was good! "You can heal people?"_

_"Yes!" Maybe he just needed more convincing. Maybe he was scared of mutants, too._

_But Uncle Angus was **really** angry. "That's great, kid - but what use is it now? Where was this super-special ability of yours when your parents died in the accident and left you with me, huh?"_

_Reid gasped at the mention of his parents and started backing away. "Uncle Angu-"_

_"Where were you when my sister was bleeding to death on the side of the road?"_

_And Reid was there again, back in the nightmare, trying to get Mom to wake up, pressing his hands over the pooling blood that wouldn't **stop**. "I tried to stop her dying, I did, I swear-"_

_Grabbing hold of Reid, Uncle Angus shook him by the shoulders. "What use are you **now**?"_

The pain in his own ankle was sufficient enough that Reid yanked his hands free. It took an effort - it always took an effort - but he had enough strength to pull away and slump back in his chair. After a few moments, when he finally made himself look at Luke, it was no surprise at all to see Luke staring at him in wonder.

The tears in his eyes weren't completely unexpected, either.

Luke swallowed. "What...was that?"

Brushing the back of his hand over his nose absently, Reid shrugged and looked away. "Transference goes both ways. I take your pain. You get some memories. Lucky you. How's it feeling?" he rushed on, gesturing to Luke's ankle.

Looking down at his foot, Luke glanced over at Raven and Charles and began testing it, slowly rotating. "Still sore and tender, but nowhere near..." He paused, focusing on Reid. "Thank you. So much, Reid, really. You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah," he said, speaking the truth. "I did. And I also need to rest now, so fun though this is to say, I'll need a little help."

"Why would..?" Realisation flickered across Luke's face. Carelessly hopping from the bed with an agility he couldn't have managed a few minutes ago, he landed on his feet hard, immediately bending down to yank up the bottom of Reid's pants.

"Hey, I just healed that damn thing. If you break it again it's all on you this time."

Luke ignored the comment that even Reid acknowledged was a diversionary tactic. Instead, he gently pulled off the sock and shoe from Reid's left foot and wow, did that feel good. The expression on Luke's face, however, when he saw the ugly bruising now adorning Reid's ankle didn't feel particularly good.

"Remarkable," Charles observed.

"I've seen better," Raven argued.

Reid shrugged, feeling awkward as hell. "I didn't take it all," he told Luke, "I'm not a masochist. But this way you don't have a broken ankle and we'll just have to deal with some bruising for a few days."

Releasing Reid's pant leg, Luke stood back up. It looked like he couldn't decide if he should glare at him or throw his arms around him. Reid was hoping for the later, but without all the emotional stuff that usually went with it.

"Reid," Luke began emotionally.

Fortunately, he had a genuine out, as a wave of exhaustion made him lean to one side. "Seriously, I need to lie down."

*

When Reid opened his eyes this time, Luke was staring at him. "Stalker much?" Reid asked, voice rough from sleep.

At Reid's own insistence, he'd come up to his own bed to rest. He'd managed to hobble to his room - using the elevator, he wasn't an idiot - unassisted. That hadn't stopped Luke from walking next to him the entire time anyway, offering to use his powers to 'carry' Reid more than once. Reid was extremely firm in his refusal and had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He couldn't help but wonder if Luke had been here watching him the whole time. The thought was both a little creepy and a little...something else.

Sitting on one side of his own bed, Luke looked distinctly unimpressed. "Yeah, sarcasm's not going to stop me asking questions."

Crap. "Don't I get a pass for helping you?"

Luke just shook his head. "Must be Damian's DNA," he offered, "but I want to know and I won't leave you alone until I do."

That was a ridiculous comparison. "You're nothing like him."

"Sometimes I am," Luke argued and that was all he said on the matter until he looked at Reid significantly. "If you really didn't want me to know, you wouldn't have healed me. Maybe," he continued, "you decided that it was worth taking the risk that I'd see something personal if it meant I wasn't in pain anymore. Which is just about the nicest thing anyone's done for me," he said, producing a pleased, almost private, smile. "And Charles and Erik have done a lot of good things for me."

Reid could've said it was nothing, it didn't mean anything. That he'd have done the same for anyone. But given how pleased Luke looked, the hopeful cast to his expression as he glanced up at Reid from beneath lowered eyelashes...

Reid could've said it was nothing.

He didn't.

"It started when I was 8."

"Early," Luke remarked, but didn't seem shocked.

"This annoying brat fell over in the playground," Reid explained, deciding not to respond to comments unless he had to. It'd be over faster, that way. "I couldn't stand her constant whining so to shut her up I tried to see if-"

"You tried to help your friend; I get it."

Of course Luke thought the best of him. "I grabbed her knee and, though she called me a name we shouldn't have known at that age, she didn't stop me from looking. And...I can't explain it, even now. I just felt...drawn to it, and when I pressed my palm on her leg..."

"You healed her," Luke finished, sounding amazed. "But it was different to how it is now, right?" he asked almost immediately after. "When I saw the memory with your uncle, there didn't seem to be any kind of...emotion transfer?" he finished, for lack of another term.

"It changed when I hit puberty," Reid nodded. "Before that it was just straight-on healing - I'd touch the person, I'd get the effects of their injury. The longer I touched them, the more of their injury I took. And I healed faster from an injury I took from someone than if I just happened to hurt myself. Don't even try to ask me the science behind any of it, because I tried for years and it still makes no sense to me whatsoever." Maybe Charles would have a theory about that aspect of his power.

"So, it works with anything? If I had...say, cancer, and you healed me..."

"I wouldn't get cancer, but I'd suffer the effects of it for a while. Depends on what kind of cancer it was, of course. Same with a brain tumour. I wouldn't get the tumour itself, but if it'd been pressing on their optic nerve, for example, I'd go blind for a few days." That'd been a fun experience.

Luke stared at him in realisation. "You're talking from experience," he said quietly.

Reid was already opening himself up enough - he wasn't about to start talking about the people he tried to help, his own stupidity and the physical effect it had on him.

Or the people who noticed.

"But when I hit puberty, it started to change. Every time I healed someone," usually Angus forcing him to heal whatever injury he'd suffered, "emotions started transferring from...well, me." That'd gone down particularly well with his uncle. "Until eventually it became memories, too."

Luke nodded slowly. "Always the same memories?"

"It varies," Reid shrugged, "but it's usually the strongest ones." The first time Reid'd shared the memory of his parents' death, not only had Angus freaked out, he'd accused him of doing it on purpose.

Luke spent the next few uncomfortable seconds staring at him until it looked disturbingly like he was about to throw his arms around Reid in sympathy.

Reid didn't do hugs. Or sympathy. He hadn't since he was 7 years old.

"Don't feel sorry for me," he warned. He'd survived and he wasn't about to let anyone take that accomplishment away from him. As far as Reid was concerned, his life was a success story.

"That's not..." Biting his lip briefly, Luke stopped himself. "No, that's a lie. I am feeling sorry for what you went through, but..." After a brief hesitation he moved suddenly until he was sitting on the same bed, scant inches from Reid, clearly not giving a crap about personal space. "You're right. About emotions being transferred. I...felt so many of them. I'm so sad."

He swallowed hard, completely out of his depth. "I told you not to feel sorry for-"

"Not for you. All you ever wanted to do was _help_ people, make a difference. Here you are, this amazing man with this amazing gift and the real power to help people directly - and they're too scared of you to even let you help. No, I don't feel sorry for _you_ , Reid," he repeated, "I feel sorry for everyone else."

Reid decided this would be the perfect time to kiss Luke Snyder, at turns cloyingly naive and wise to the world, who invaded Reid's personal space like it didn't even exist - when Reid was quite fond of it, thankyouverymuch - and who despite everything he'd been through, somehow had the strength of character to not keep his emotions locked away, to share whatever he was feeling no matter who was listening.

Reid thought it was an excellent time to kiss Luke Snyder - so he did.

As an added plus, it'd stop him from talking about _feelings_ so damn much.

Luke's reaction showed only vague surprise at being kissed; it took him no time at all to cup one hand on Reid's shoulder and the other on the back of Reid's head, making sure he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Reid approved.

It was a little awkward at first - Reid suspected he wasn't the only one whose romantic past was minimal - but it didn't take long for them to make it work, and not long after that it was really working and Reid had to pull away before he started humping against Luke right then and there.

They stared at each other, taking deep breaths with bruised mouths.

"I know why you did that," Luke said quietly, privately, eyes falling back to Reid's mouth.

Reid decided Luke's hair really needed his fingers in it. "Oh?"

"Yeah," Luke sighed happily, leaning closer toward him, still seemingly fascinated with Reid's face. "I was talking about what a good man you are. It made you uncomfortable so, in an attempt to shut me up, you kissed me." Smiling again, he brushed a finger lightly against Reid's bottom lip. "It won't work. I've seen inside your mind."

It was terrifying dealing with the implications; knowing that Luke knew so much about him that no one else he'd cared about had ever known. And yet...

At least he didn't have to _talk_ about his emotions. They were right there for Luke to access. Reid didn't need to discuss it - Luke already knew. And that made some things just...easier.

This entire encounter was astonishingly hot - even with the amount of product Luke's hair was caked with. "What makes you so sure of my reasoning? And what the hell do you put in your hair?"

Laughing quietly in surprise, Luke nudged Reid lightly with his elbow. "You're not the first impenetrable, brooding type I've met," he replied, probably referring to Erik, "and it's a mutant secret. I'm not allowed to tell you."

"I am a mutant," Reid reminded needlessly, leaning closer until they were literally breathing against each other's mouths.

Luke pulled back slightly, holding his gaze. "But you still don't consider yourself one of us."

Somehow, the flirting had taken a serious tone, leaving Reid to flounder for some kind of response. He glanced away. "I don't belong anywhere. I never have." He wasn't sad about it. It just was.

"I get that," Luke nodded, "and I get why. But if you want, from now on...you're welcome to see if you belong here." He smiled encouragingly.

Reid honestly didn't know if he meant with Luke, or the school. Or both. This is why he hated all this emotional stuff - it was never clear-cut.

Not knowing how to respond to that directly and relationship-deficient though he was, even Reid realised he had to give Luke something verbally. Which meant taking a page out of Luke's bravery book. "Shutting you up...it wasn't the only reason I kissed you."

Gaze softening, Luke's lips quirked up at the corners again. "I know," he said firmly, bringing their mouths together.

Reid had never spent an evening like it. They made out the way Reid had always heard about - like horny teenagers not quite ready to go all the way, but enjoying the hell out of kissing each other nonetheless. Reid had technically had sex but it was nothing like this; that'd been fast, technical, impersonal. This was slow, warm moments shared with Luke's smile and his - frequently successful - attempts at making Reid laugh. Bodies twined together on Reid's bed, Luke pressed against Reid's side, they kissed like there was nothing else to do in the world. No books to write or children to teach; no wrongs to be righted. Reid discovered what the skin beneath Luke's shirt felt like and Luke discovered that Reid was ticklish - something he took full advantage of, much to Reid's mostly-faked annoyance.

They both fell asleep at some point and hours later Reid woke to find them scrunched up together on the same bed, his left arm having lost all feeling thanks to the weight of Luke's body and the remnants of Luke's hair gel stuck to the fingers of his right hand.

Could he really do this?

He spent the time waiting for Luke to wake up mostly staring at the ceiling, trying to analyse, make sense of what was happening. When he looked at Luke he tended to get distracted by the feelings he'd previously been trying - and mostly failing - to ignore.

As he basically had no experience to draw from and no long-term examples to observe, Reid had long held two opinions on relationships - they were either a crock or a waste of everyone's time. It was practically guaranteed that he and Luke would end up hurting each other. True, there would be some benefits. Reid could admit that waking up and finding someone he didn't hate lying next to him wasn't entirely unappealing - and from what they'd done together already, Reid felt confident in assuming the sex would be pretty damn great.

But even taking that into account, assuming the bitter end that always seemed to come to these kind of things, why would he do that? Why put himself at risk like that?

Murmuring in his sleep, Luke shifted and sighed against him and Reid's heart contracted painfully.

Fuck.

After a decidedly shaky piece of performance art gymnastics, Reid managed to free himself, leaving Luke alone on the bed. He wasn't sure where he was going, but it was clear he had to put some space between Luke and his heart-clenching sighs (it was ridiculous that he even had to think that) in order to be able to think clearly.

He'd walked a good portion of the maze-like corridors, at a frustratingly reduced rate thanks to his ankle, when the door to the room he was passing swung open seemingly of it's own accord. Reid was just wondering if he should be making himself scarce when Erik stepped into the open doorway.

Frankly, he still wondered if he should be making himself scarce. "How did you-?"

"Telepath," Erik interrupted, in a tone of voice that implied Reid was an idiot.

In this case, for once, Reid was willing to accept that Erik had a point, though he blamed his lack of logical thinking on the late hour and thus it was completely justified.

After a moment of hesitation followed by a general feeling of _what the hell?_ Reid accepted the implicit invitation produced by Erik standing to one side and walked into the room. Reid fully expected Charles to be dressed in a very British pair of pajamas, but instead he was shirtless - and sitting up in bed with the covers over his lap, so for all Reid knew Charles may not have been wearing anything at all. Charles and Erik were both attractive enough in their own right, but the thought still made Reid do a mental shudder.

Remembering he was thinking about this crap in front of a telepath, he studied Charles carefully. If he had any idea what Reid had just been thinking about, he gave no indication of if whatsoever.

Erik sat down at the desk at the far side of the room, back towards them as he used his powers to start manipulating a container of small metal balls, plainly not giving a crap about why Reid was there.

Their room, while obviously designed at the same time as the rest of the building, was a little warmer, a little more lived-in. A bookcase was a cluttered mess of books and mementos. A table was covered with open books and a closed laptop. A robe was hooked over the back of a chair and another was draped across Charles' wheelchair next to his side of the bed. A tall lamp in the corner provided light.

Reid had expected them to be neater.

"I suppose," Charles began, who may have been topless but who also had an amazing case of bedhead, "if I ask you if you want to talk about it, you'll insist that you don't want to, that there's nothing to talk about, that it's none of my business, etcetera etcetera." He paused, as if giving Reid a chance to speak. When Reid didn't, wanting to see just where he was going with this, Charles continued. "When it's quite obvious that you do want to talk about it, otherwise you wouldn't have come into the room."

Charles' brand of logic was particularly annoying. "I don't like you."

It was Erik who responded, a raised hand forming the metal balls into a circle a foot above the desk. "He gets that a lot."

"Quite true," Charles nodded towards Erik but looked at Reid. "The truth hurts. People don't like facing it. Which is unusual for you, Reid, because you're not the type of man who tends to hide the truth from others - or himself. Except in this, apparently," he added with meaning, holding Reid's gaze.

"I have no idea how to have a... _normal_ relationship."

Erik snorted, still not turning to look at him. "Don't know why you'd want a normal relationship in the first place."

"Erik has a point," Charles concurred. "We're already _ab_ normal. And what does 'normal' mean anyway? It doesn't mean what it did fifty years ago. Even ten years ago," he pointed out. "It's my belief that what's 'normal' for me is completely different for the next person. Normal is whatever works for you."

"Sounds to me like you're still trying to fit in," Erik said. "Didn't take you for that kind of man." Aware that he'd just been insulted, Reid hoped that Erik would drop the metal balls on his own head.

"I don't suppose the two of you have talked about your expectations?" Charles asked.

Yeah, this was making him feel awkward as hell. Before tonight, he'd never talked about relationships with anyone in his entire life. "Uh. No."

"You should," he encouraged. "Trust me, it'll make things easier in the long run, no matter how scary it may seem at the moment."

"I never said I was-"

"We're all scared," Charles interrupted. "Of making mistakes. Doing it wrong. Hurting them." He glanced over towards Erik, where the metal balls were still hovering in the air, if unmoving. "We all have issues. Whether because of the way we were raised, our mutations, the way we were treated later...there's not one of us who hasn't wished for things to be different at some point in our lives, no matter how accepting we are of our circumstances now." Focusing back on Reid, he smiled sadly.

It was obvious he was talking from personal experience, which at least assured Reid that they'd gone through all this crap themselves. "You two seem..." He glanced from Charles over to Erik's back, the balls slowly and perfectly slotting themselves back into their container one-by-one. "Happy." If that was the right word.

"It took a lot of work," Charles admitted, "but things happen that help you reassess your priorities. I wasn't willing to live without him, so we compromised."

"I'm the one who paralysed him," Erik volunteered as the last ball clicked into place, a surprise for many reasons. "That changed everything."

Really, what was anyone supposed to say to that? Rather than say anything about it at all, Reid instead took in the emotional look Charles was sending Erik's back and decided he'd better leave. Preferably, the sooner the better. Clearing his throat, he gestured towards the door, even though no one was looking at him. "I'm gonna leave. Thanks for..."

"Yes, quite," Charles remarked, still staring at Erik's back.

He'd made it out of the room and turned to close the door when a figure was suddenly standing in front of him. Blinking as he recognised Erik - he was fast - Reid opened his mouth. "I-"

"If you do this, do it properly," Erik told him, a distinct tone of warning in his voice. "All in or nothing - Luke deserves that much. And an unsettled mind creates an unsettled telepath. Next time, have your freak outs about your love life before we go to bed." The door closed firmly in Reid's face, leaving him blinking dumbly at the dark wood.

He still hadn't made a decision one way or another. But instead of guaranteeing his own comfort by choosing to sleep in Luke's bed alone, he took one look at Luke dozing quietly, his hair sticking out in ten different directions simultaneously, and squashed himself back onto the same bed.

*

His last morning at _Xavier's School For The Gifted_ greeted him at Early O'Clock with a throbbing in his ankle - and his back. Wincing, he tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but it was pretty much a lost cause. Wherever he moved, Luke went with him. Sighing, Reid gave up and acknowledged that, being so sore, he wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon. Acting as little more than a second mattress for Luke, Reid couldn't help but think back over everything he'd seen and discovered over the past week. Logically, he couldn't see how this place worked. There were so many different factors, so many unknowns, people with diametrically opposing views. It shouldn't have worked but, although it was something of a mess, it did work. It worked so well that sometimes the mutants here even went out of their way to work together to help others - sometimes even the very people who were terrified of them.

When Luke woke up, Reid already had questions prepared. He wasn't sure why he'd been avoiding asking them, but this might be his last chance and, though Reid would've avoided admitting it earlier, even for him, the curiousity was too great.

After an early-morning kiss - which was, honestly, an appealing way to start the day - Reid spoke.

"Where do you keep the superhero stuff?"

"Superhero stuff?" Luke asked, confused, brow wrinkling together in a way that was not-at-all cute.

"The uniforms," Reid explained, "that huge plane-thing that the guy with the feet is always flying."

Luke fixed him with an unamused expression. "You know his name is Hank, right?"

"Why would I call him Hank when I can call him feet guy?" It honestly baffled him.

With a sigh, Luke quickly freed himself from Reid and the bed with an ease of movement that Reid envied. After a quick stretch, Luke seemed to be suffering no ill-effects whatsoever and headed sprightly towards the door - albeit a little slower than usual, due to his still-injured ankle. Reid followed, mentally cursing as he hobbled after him, but finding it easier on his back the longer he walked.

Being early in the day, no one else seemed to be up yet, and Reid gratefully followed Luke into the elevator. What happened next, however, wasn't at all what Reid had been expecting. Rather than press the button for the first floor, Luke apparently did nothing at all but somehow caused a metal panel below the different floor buttons to flip open. Blinking, Reid watched in shock as the button that'd been revealed behind the panel lit up of its own accord. Luke was obviously using his powers freely and as the elevator started moving - down - Reid studied him curiously.

"Have you been holding back on your powers since I arrived?"

"A little," Luke admitted, turning towards him even though he appeared slightly embarrassed. "Sometimes even mutants freak each other out before we get used to each other's powers. And as I knew we were going to be sharing a room all week, I wanted you to feel comfortable."

It hadn't escaped Reid's attention that they'd travelled well below the first floor, but this seemed more important. Luke was too damn nice. "You don't have to hold back around me."

"Okay," Luke said smoothly.

Too smoothly. "I mean it," Reid said, holding his gaze. "We are what we are. There's no sense in hiding any of it - at least with each other." Reid knew that sometimes, for your own safety, you had to hide who you were - no matter how much he hated the idea. There was no need to do that around Luke.

Licking his lips, Luke nodded slowly, surer of himself. "Okay," he replied again, as the elevator came to a stop and the doors pinged open.

Reid stepped out behind him and there was metal.

Everywhere.

"Let me guess," Reid began, slowly turning on the spot, taking it all in, "Erik chose the decor."

"Something like that," Luke smiled. "We have various escape routes and defenses should we ever come under attack, but if we get cut off from those..."

"Erik has a lot of material down here to work with," Reid nodded. "Not that you need it to be metal," he remarked.

"True," Luke agreed, "but I've mostly been trained in defense. This way, come on," he said and Reid was all too happy to follow him. With every wall looking exactly the same - silver metal, with strip lighting - it was even more of a maze than the mansion upstairs.

Probably another form of defense. "So what's down here, exactly?"

"Science labs. A bunker," Luke explained, "for our protection but also where those of us with more...volatile abilities can practise safely. A changing area with the 'uniforms'," he teased. "The hanger with the jet."

Reid shook his head. "It's just as well the grounds are so big."

"It helps," Luke conceded. "And..." Coming to a stop to one side of a large, round metal door, Luke leant forward towards what was apparently an iris scanner. A moment later, the door moved, sliding inside the wall. "There's this," Luke concluded, stepping to one side.

Surprised, Reid slowly walked into the room, staring up in shock. It was a huge, round room - it seemed almost perfectly spherical - with no floor, only a walkway that ended in the middle of the room, where a chair was situated. "What the hell is this?" Reid asked, turning around, taking it all in as he slowly made his way along the walkway.

"This is _Cerebro_ ," Luke told him calmly, if not a little proudly. "And it's how Charles knew where you were."

"What do you mean?" Reid asked, distracted, as he reached the chair and touched the unattractive-looking helmet connected to the back. It looked like a ridiculous old-fashioned hair dryer at an old-fashioned hair parlour.

"With it, he can find any mutant. Anywhere."

The strength of that statement sinking in, Reid blinked, pulled his hand away from the helmet and stared at Luke. "Anywhere? That's...disturbing." He couldn't decide if he felt violated or not. He definitely felt like he _should_ feel violated.

Luke didn't disagree. "Charles and Erik still have arguments about exactly what it should be used for, but they generally agree that it's better that we find other mutants before certain other people do."

Reid could at least understand that argument. "Like the kind of people who might attack you?" Luke nodded. "Who were you talking about?" He'd be interested to know who had the kind of cajones to take on a mansion full of mutants with kick-ass powers.

"Any group of scared humans with money and power behind them," Luke offered, sounding like he knew it was going to happen one day. "Some faction of someone's military or government who finally decide we're too big a threat. _The Brotherhood_."

"The...bad mutants, right?" Reid knew it wasn't that simple, but he also knew _The Brotherhood_ had done nothing at all to help other mutants exist peacefully with non-mutants, only making it harder for them to fit in.

"Something like that," Luke made a face.

Nodding thoughtfully, Reid tapped the top of the helmet with a finger. "So, only Charles can use this thing?"

"He's the only one strong enough."

"You're not strong enough?"

"Well, I'm also not a telepath," Luke grinned, apparently flattered. "It's kind of essential. Wanna see more?"

He did.

They talked a lot, too. They talked about how often the _X-Men_ \- a name coined by the press - went out on missions to help people. Apparently there'd always been a lot of debate about how often they should help. Some thought they should help as much as they can, some didn't want to spook non-mutants by effectively being in their faces all the time, some thought non-mutants should be left to their own devices and mutants should only take care of their own. At the moment, standard operating procedure was to help with any situation deemed 'bad enough' - Reid had no idea how they classified what qualified - which could be anything from a natural disaster to a terrorist attack, and to stop any crimes committed by other mutants.

Luke, himself, had never been on a mission - which explained his comment about mostly being trained in defense. Someone had to stay with the kids and they all trusted him, he reasoned, but Reid could tell that Luke was itching to get out there, to feel like he was really doing something to help.

Luke was just showing him the uniforms - the yellow really was seriously hideous and didn't look any better here than it did in pictures or on TV - when a noise behind them made them both quickly turn around.

Reid took in Erik's disdainful expression. "How sad for you that you can't actually kill someone with that look.”

Luke stifled a laugh.

The metal wall behind Reid's head vibrated.

Reid decided to shut up.

A few hours later, Reid was packed and standing on the patio, watching a cab travel up the long driveway towards the mansion. Luke was standing next to him. Things had been...weird since visiting the underground structure, the two of them not talking to each other much. Reid figured it was because they were coming to terms with the fact that he was leaving and neither one of them knew what the hell to do about it.

"So," Luke rocked on his feet, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a too-tight dark green t-shirt and was looking at the grass instead of looking at Reid. "We'll keep in contact. I think. And you'll come and visit. Right?" he asked hopefully. Reid didn't know what to say and a few moments later, Luke repeated the question. "Right?"

Screw it. Reid didn't think. Reid had done too much thinking. Instead he just went with his instincts and, in this case, since his instincts told him to kiss the hell out of Luke, he was pretty damn happy with them.

Luke seemed pretty damn happy with them, too, overcoming his surprise and kissing Reid back just as enthusiastically.

When they finally pulled apart, Luke smiled without even opening his eyes. "You have to come back," he said warmly, "because I want a lot more of that."

Smiling himself and barely even trying to stop, Reid took in Luke's happy face and wondered exactly when he'd become so entirely screwed. "I think I actually will."

Luke's responding smile was quite something and, deciding he'd made far too much of a sap of himself already, Reid picked up his suitcase and turned away. A few members of staff and a few students were waiting for him on the driveway - more than he'd expected, if he were honest. Seeing Charles there, situated on the asphalt path that cut through the gravel drive, however, wasn't a surprise at all.

Reid walked straight up to him. "Luke told me," he began quickly, "about the camp he was in. You're the one who saved him?"

"It was Erik, really," Charles explained.

That figured. "Thank him for me."

Nodding, Charles silently agreed. "You're welcome back at any time," Charles told him seriously. "And not just for Luke."

Reid was just producing his own manly nod when he heard the sound of shoes crunching against gravel and turned to see Raven and Irene running towards him.

"Wait!" Raven called out, bizarrely, and when they finally came to a stop in front of him, she didn't even seem out of breath.

Irene did.

"She insisted," Raven told him.

"Insisted on what?" Reid asked, utterly confused.

With unnerving accuracy for a woman who couldn't see, Irene suddenly stepped forward, grabbed onto both of Reid's shoulders and leaned towards his left ear. "When he asks," she rasped quietly into his ear, still out of breath, "don't let him go alone."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just pretend all that stuff about Reid's previous career is accurate, okay? ;)

Reid didn't turn his phone on until he got back to his apartment. He had nearly twenty voice mails from Katie, each one more irritatingly frantic than the next - but didn't take any of them seriously until he heard the last one.

_Reid. Call me the second you get this. For once, it's not about a deadline. Is it true you spent the last week with the mutants?_

Shit.

Reid stared down at his phone, resting seemingly innocently on the kitchen counter. He wasn't ashamed of being a mutant - there was nothing about being Reid Oliver that he was ashamed of - but he hadn't come out and declared his mutant abilities publicly because a) it wasn't anybody's business and, b) he was well-aware of the problems it could cause and he saw no reason to make life more difficult for himself. _The Mutant Registration Act_ was still being thrust through Congress every year - and though, so far, every attempt to turn it into law hadn't worked, sentiment towards mutants varied dramatically from person to person. Just like any group of people who were seen as 'different', they were at turns hated, scared of or pitied.

When he was younger Reid had been almost defiant about his sexuality because, while he'd been lucky enough to only encounter vague bouts of homophobia – which still made his blood boil – he'd had more serious physical and verbal encounters from people when they found out he was a mutant. Somewhat ironically, his sexuality was something he could be more open about and though Reid wasn't a gay rights activist and wouldn't be walking at any Pride parades, it wasn't a secret either.

He knew it wasn't all bad. He knew he and other mutants had supporters, non-mutants who fought for equal rights. Reid supposed he should be thankful but mostly he just thought they should all be left the hell alone.

He also really didn't want to make this call to Katie.

He did it anyway, because he owed her that much.

“Hey,” Reid said, when she picked up, hands fiddling with a bottle of water as he moved out of the kitchen with his phone jammed between an ear and a shoulder. “It's me.”

“I know,” Katie replied, “I do have this thing called Caller ID. But apparently _you_ don't have this thing called 'checking your voice mail'.”

“You know that's not a thing, right? It's a concept, absolutely, but no one actually says-”

“Reid...” Katie interrupted.

Pausing by the sofa, he placed the bottle on the table in front. “How'd you find out?” He felt almost stupidly nervous and ridiculously angry at the same time. He owed Katie so much, but this should've been on his terms.

“Reid, you are more than smart enough to know that people are always watching that place – and I don't just mean the Government. You had to...” she paused. “You had to know this would come out.”

Maybe it had been on his own terms.

Maybe quietly, subconsciously, he'd gotten tired of hiding this part of himself for so long.

Maybe.

He slowly sank down onto the sofa. “Is it public?”

“Not yet,” Katie said and yeah, that made sense. If it had been public he would've had a lot more messages waiting on his phone. Maybe people waiting outside his apartment. “So we need to get ahead of this thing. Am I right in thinking it...” She hesitated. “It wasn't research for a book, was it?”

There was an out. She didn't believe it herself, but she was offering him an out.

But he thought of all the people living openly at _Xavier's School For The Gifted_ – still a pretentious-ass name – all the students and staff trying so hard to just live, and couldn't take it.

“No.” That was all there was to say. All that needed saying.

Katie was quiet for a long time. When she did speak again, she sounded suspiciously emotional. “You know, I remember a launch event we went to a couple of years ago.” Reid knew exactly which event she was talking about. “Chris had just dumped me – I drank way too much. You kept calling me an idiot-”

“Actually I called you an imbecile for ever taking up with that flaming dung heap in the first place-”

“-but you covered for me, saying I'd come down with something, even when I went over on those ridiculous heels I was wearing. I passed out not long after that,” she confessed, like this was something he didn't already know. “And when I woke up the next morning my foot barely hurt but I remembered this...dream?” It was voiced like a question, where clearly now she had to know it'd been anything but. “I worked in a hospital and I had these...powers. That helped people. And I helped people whenever I could, as much as I could get away with, because I took their injuries, their pain myself. But one day I got caught and-”

To this day he could still feel Annie's dad pushing him against the wall, into furniture, his absolute need to keep a _mutant freak_ away from his daughter.

That day had changed everything in his life.

Again.

Katie sniffed. “Was that you, Reid?”

He said nothing, because she already knew the answer.

“You could've told me,” she said honestly. “At any time. You could've told me.”

She wasn't trying to guilt him, make him feel bad. She was just stating the truth. “I know.” Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, Reid lowered his head. His eyes felt suspiciously glassy and there was no way in hell he was allowing them to develop into anything beyond that. Glassy was bad enough.

There was nothing wrong with crying, Reid knew that. It was a healthy – even vital – emotional output. But he'd told himself a long time ago that he was done getting emotional over this part of his life. There was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't un-make himself a mutant and he wouldn't even if he could.

But Katie had a way of bringing that side of him out – probably because she was one of the only people he genuinely gave a crap about.

“Okay,” she said then, “okay. So,” a nose blew into a tissue on the other end of the phone which, as disgusting as it was, at least lessened the level of emotion, “how do you want to handle this?”

*

“I know we've talked about this a few times already,” Luke began on what had become one of their nightly phone calls. “But are you absolutely sure? It's a big step. Once this kind of thing is out...you really can't take it back.”

Stretching out the kinks in his back from sitting at a computer all day, Reid cricked his neck from side to side. “That surprises me coming from you,” he admitted, opening the refrigerator door to study the contents. “I always got the impression you'd be Mr Out and Proud. Especially given...” What they did to him. Reid's hand tightened on the handle to the fridge door. “What you went through.”

“I know,” Luke said wryly. “It's not like I'm not aware of the irony. Here I am with all the freedom that was once taken away from me and sometimes I feel like I'm doing nothing with it. I hate it,” he added quietly and Reid suddenly lost all interest in eating. “I hate that in a way what they did to me there worked. I mean obviously I'm still gay and I'm still a mutant but...” Luke sighed. “I was so young when it all happened but before it did I was already writing to congresspeople, campaigning for equal rights, supporting local groups and now I...don't do any of that.” He huffed out a breath. “It's humiliating in a way. I used to be so brave. But now I don't want the world to notice me in case...”

Reid nodded. “In case it happens again.”

“Yeah,” Luke rasped out. “Pretty dumb, I guess.”

“Well, I'd definitely agree that you're pretty,” Reid said, which at least made him chuckle and had been the plan all along. “And dumb, sure, but everyone except me is dumb anyway.”

“Right, right, I forgot about that. Didn't I read in a book jacket somewhere that your full name is Reid Oliver, Genius At Large?”

“Well something about me is certainly large-”

“Oh my _God_.”

Good. At least he was starting to feel better. “And you're braver than you think. After they rescued you, you could've gone anywhere, done anything and hidden your true nature away from the world. Instead, you made a life at a place that celebrates mutants, celebrates being different. Everyone knows that everyone who works at the school is a mutant.”

“But is it really so brave?” Luke shot back. “Living in a huge mansion with fifty powerful mutants who can take on just about anything?”

“You have to stop doubting yourself.”

“I know,” Luke huffed out a breath. “Erik says that, too.”

“Great, we have something in common. That's...swell.”

Luke chuckled. “I guess...after everything we go through. Everything we have to deal with. The occasional moments of doubt are only human.” He laughed briefly again, probably at the irony of that statement, before turning serious. “I just want to help, you know?”

Reid thought of the lessons in Luke's classrooms, of the students who'd been absolutely invested, who showed no fear in challenging or questioning Luke at all. “Trust me. You are.”

*

Reid had never been a 'celebrity'. Honestly, he almost couldn't think of anything worse – having your face plastered everywhere, the press following your every move, people debating what they thought about you on social media. He'd done advertising for the books, of course, but the bare minimum. He'd never done television interviews, only print. And though he made a comfortable living with his writing, he was nowhere near the level of the JK Rowling's of the world.

All of this helped, somewhat, when they broke the news. Katie released a statement that he was a mutant, didn't specifically mention his power (they both agreed he'd be constantly accosted by people wanting him to heal them), but did imply it was a power that couldn't hurt anyone. And...that was it. The news was out.

He got off pretty easily, initially. Most of the major papers carried it, but not as front page news. The press followed him around for a few days – which was, admittedly, really fucking annoying – but as he was a writer, he was indoors writing most of the time anyway.

It wasn't long, however, until interviews with the people who lived in his apartment building started appearing. It became obvious pretty quickly which of them were prejudiced assholes and though Reid didn't take it personally – he wasn't friends with any of them anyway – it was still frustrating.

“I'm sorry they're treating you this way,” Luke said the next night, as Reid sat up in bed flicking through some paperwork.

“It's not like it's a surprise,” Reid said back, letting the papers fall from his fingers. “People are inherently assholes, I already knew this.”

“Not all people,” Luke argued, “and even if that was true, knowing it in advance doesn't make it any less crappy to go through. You don't deserve this.”

“We don't deserve a lot of the crap life throws at us,” he replied quickly. “It just happens. Life isn't an entity that's good or evil, it just exists, and bad things either happen or they don't. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. It's not unfair, it's just the way it is.”

Luke wasn't convinced, of course, but Reid knew better.

And then two days later, Alan Judd came forward to the press.

Reid had known it might happen. Had been vaguely surprised that it hadn't happened earlier, when he started writing – but then that was part of the reason he'd always written under the name _R Oliver_ instead of _Reid Oliver_ , wasn't it? Another part of the reason he'd always been relieved at not being 'too' famous.

So, yeah, he'd known that it could happen.

He thought he was ready for it.

He wasn't.

*

Reid didn't remember much after Katie called him with the news. He knew that he'd listened to everything she'd said, knew that he'd managed to end the call and fumble for Luke's number. He didn't really have another coherent thought until there were warm hands on his skin and Luke's worried face swimming into view.

Luke was there.

Luke was there?

He managed to speak. “How...?”

Kneeling down next to him, Luke helped Reid sit up. “This is Clarice,” he introduced, nodding to a a woman Reid had only just noticed was there at all. She nodded a greeting of her own. “She's like us. She's going to take you back to the school, okay?”

Reid nodded silently, because right now he really didn't feel capable of doing anything else.

“Anything we should bring with us?” Luke asked, helping Reid to his feet.

Blinking, Reid looked around blindly, not really seeing anything and just thought about the necessities. “Phone. Laptop.”

“That we can do,” Luke confirmed, an arm around Reid to make sure he wasn't about to head for the floor again. “Clarice, you mind-?”

“Not a problem,” Clarice said, quickly finding the objects in question before coming back to stand next to them. She looked Reid in the eye and said, “Brace yourself.”

There was a charge in the air, a race of lightning up his spine and goosebumps sprung up all over his body, but then they were at the school, in a room, Luke's room specifically and Reid didn't even take the time to process anything, just aimed straight for the bed he'd used the last time he was there and passed out.

*

Charles was next to the bed when he woke up.

It was not Reid's favourite way of waking up.

“Feeling better?”

Considering he could now think coherently enough to feel embarrassed – not an experience that happened a lot in Reid's life – he had to admit that he did. Life still fucking sucked, though. “Yeah.”

Charles nodded his approval. “Good. He was quite concerned about you when you called, you know. Clarice has been living off-campus for a long time, but he didn't hesitate to contact her. She's decided to visit for a while now at least, which is always nice.”

Reid shifted in bed until he swung his body around, sitting on the edge, not liking the imbalance of power as Charles looked down at him. “Must be handy having a teleporter on call.”

“That it can be,” Charles agreed, staring at Reid in a way that was definitely creepy. “We're aware of what's been happening-”

“Of course you are,” Reid muttered, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“Only because we've been following the news,” Charles assured him. “If there's anything you need, any support you'd like us to give, it's yours.”

Reid stared at him suspiciously. “Right.”

Charles sighed at him. “I know you don't trust easily, even if I don't know all the reasons why. Many of the people who come here start off the same way. You've managed to let Luke it. It would be nice if he wasn't the only one.” His piece apparently said, Charles backed his wheelchair up slightly, before turning towards the exit.

Reid's mouth, apparently, couldn't let it go. “Luke's the exception.”

Charles didn't even dignify that comment by turning around, just continued heading straight out of the room. “Yes, Reid. Tell me something I _don't_ know.”

Reid glared at his stupid mechanical chair as it buzzed its way out of the room.

Luke appeared a few minutes later with a spring in his step and a plate with a huge sandwich sitting on it. “Hi!” He greeted happily, handing the plate towards Reid and while Reid may have been a simple man with simple tastes, Luke met every single one of them.

“You look a lot better,” Luke smiled as he sat on the bed next to him and Reid set about devouring the sandwich in question.

Chewing, Reid grunted in response until his mouth was empty enough to speak. “Thanks for...you know.”

“It's nothing you need to thank me for,” Luke scoffed. 

Reid left it at that despite disagreeing with him, partly because he didn't know how else to show his thanks and partly because he was still stuffing his face.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while as Reid kept eating. When he'd finished and was inspecting the crumbs, Luke blurted out,

“I had panic attacks for a...while, after. Sometimes still have one now and then if I'm honest,” he added, glancing down. “They suck ass.”

That made Reid smile. A little. And as Luke had gone first, he felt compelled to respond in kind. “I think mine was a form of...disassociation.”

“Okay,” Luke said carefully.

“It's happened before but...not for a very long time.”

“Okay,” Luke continued. “That doesn't seem very healthy.”

Reid couldn't disagree with him. “Can't disagree with you on that one.”

“Maybe you could...” Luke gestured with a hand, “...see someone?”

“Yeah,” Reid snorted, standing from the bed, “because I'm the type to go see a shrink. And there are so many mutant-friendly shrinks out there already,” he said sarcastically, shoving the plate on top of the desk. They'd talked about this subject too many times already.

Luke, apparently, couldn't argue the point. “Well, you know there's always people here if you ever want to talk to anyone.”

Turning to look at Luke – Luke, who'd stood up as well and was facing Reid hopefully, hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans – Reid felt all the cynicism flood out of him. Relaxing his shoulders, he sighed. “I know.”

Smiling softly, Luke inched closer, and almost before Reid knew it, there were arms around him and Luke's face in his neck. “Missed you,” Luke admitted.

Feeling more than a little out of his depth, Reid patted Luke's back awkwardly and only here, now that Luke was actually in his arms did he let himself admit just how much he'd missed being near him. They'd kissed and then some, but Reid didn't think they'd hugged before – mostly due to the fact that Reid wasn't a hugger.

“It's...sucked,” Reid found himself saying as he began to relax into the hug, which wasn't that bad really, “being away from you.”

Which was funny, apparently, because Luke laughed into his neck and then looked up at him with a massive smile. “I'm so glad we stayed in contact. When you here before, everything was so new and exciting and I hadn't felt that way in – well,” he admitted slyly, “almost ever. But I was worried, for a while, that it was just that we were attracted to each other. And while there's nothing wrong with that either, I'm glad it's...” he studied Reid hopefully, “something else.”

Reid liked that. That was an excellent way of putting it, because he personally didn't know how to phrase it otherwise. “Something else works for me.”

Expression brightening, Luke took a step back. “I want to show you something.”

This sounded promising. “Okay, show me.”

Nodding, Luke then made a Concentration Face the likes of which Reid had never seen – and was actually pretty funny to watch, though Reid was never telling Luke that – and then _Luke was floating in the air_.

Reid stared in shock and amazement as Luke kept floating, higher and higher – and the school building was massive, so the rooms had high ceilings – until his head carefully bumped the ceiling and Luke started laughing.

Reid was both amazed and horrified. “Will you get down here?”

“Reid, it's fine,” Luke promised as he floated to the other side of the room, seemingly now with no effort at all. “I told you I'd kept working on this.”

True, he had. “Well...yes, but you didn't let me know how much you'd been working on it. And if something goes wrong, who's going to be the one who heals you, huh? It'll be me. And I'm really not looking forward to feeling the effects of a concussion anytime soon.”

“ _Right_ ,” Luke somehow managed to stare him down from five feet in the air. “It's yourself you're worried about.”

Luckily, then, for Reid's sanity, Luke floated safely back to the floor.

The rest of the day was...surprisingly pleasant. Reid didn't see Erik anywhere – which he suspected was Charles and Luke's doing – and everyone just seemed to leave Luke and Reid to their own devices. That largely meant just hanging out with each other, not really doing anything, but Reid had to admit that just doing that helped him feel so much more relaxed than he'd been in a long time.

That was until later that evening, when they were about to turn in for the night.

When he returned from brushing his teeth, Reid found Luke sitting cautiously on the edge of his own bed.

Reid just had to give him a look and Luke spilt the beans.

“I've been wondering all day if I should tell you this or not,” Luke admitted.

Ah, crap. Letting out a long breath, Reid sat on the edge of the other bed and stared across at Luke. “Tell me what?”

“I read that article. The one that I think...upset you.”

Reid looked away, he really didn't want to talk about this yet. “Luke...” Couldn't talk about it yet.

“I don't know if you read it yourself yet or just heard about it,” Luke quickly rushed on, “but Reid it's really not that bad!”

“I can't,” he spat back and though he hated the way Luke's whole face shut down, he had to know the truth. “Not now. Not yet.” Turning away, he started lifting up the covers. “I'm going to bed.”

“Okay,” Luke said quickly. “Should I...?”

Reid knew what he was asking and forced himself to face Luke again. “Alone, tonight.” Luke's face turned away and Reid couldn't stand to see it shuttered again so took the few steps towards him and touched Luke's face with his hand, gently turning it back towards him. “Not as a punishment. For you – or me,” he said truthfully. “I'm...probably going to have nightmares tonight and I don't want-”

Luke's own hand came up, clutching the wrist of Reid's hand that was still touching his face. “I get it. But Reid, you know I don't care if-”

“I know.” Of that, Reid was absolutely certain. “I know you don't. But I do.”

Later, hours later, Reid hadn't had any sleep at all. He heard a sigh and Luke shifting in his own bed and the words just came out.

“All I ever wanted to do was help her.”

Reid could _hear_ the lack of movement as Luke took the statement in. Eventually all he said was,

“I know, Reid. Of course I know that.” Then he added, “You didn't do anything wrong.”

Despite how much he wanted to believe him, Reid knew that Luke had it wrong. If Reid hadn't done anything wrong, Alan Judd never would've caught him in the first place.

*

Reid ended up making the school his home for the next few days. Frankly the idea of staying away from his impersonal, press-surrounded apartment sounded fantastic. He texted Katie that he was safe and though he didn't say where, she probably guessed.

Luke mostly left him to it, having returned to taking his lessons the day after Reid's arrival. Reid didn't mind at all, using the time mostly to write, though he'd take a break now and then – mostly at Luke's insistence – and either sit in or walk the grounds. Thanks to the article, news had spread through the mutants quickly that he'd been a nurse and suddenly anyone with anything from a hangnail to a cold was stopping him for health advice. 

In the end, he burst into Charles' office. Annoyingly, Erik was there.

“Look, while I appreciate the fact that I've been able to stay here, could you tell your kiddies just to...not? I'm not a doctor,” he huffed out, frustrated. He hated people following him all the time – it was part of the reason he didn't want to go back to his place at the moment.

“Yes, why is that?” Charles questioned instead, looking completely unperturbed at the interruption. “You're certainly smart enough.”

Reid was suddenly under the impression that he'd walked into a trap of his own making.

“No bedside manner,” Erik remarked, “but that's not a deal breaker.”

“I mean, given what you can do,” Charles continued, gesturing towards him, “working in the medical field is a logical step. But why a nurse? Vital, important roles though they are, but you're more than capable, Reid. Why stop there?”

“It was my choice,” he ended up telling them because for once, he wanted to feel like he was in control of a conversation involving either one of them. “It was my choice to go as unnoticed as possible. If I was some high-flying, world-famous doctor, people would start noticing when all my patients...” He let the sentence drift off, leaving the rest of it unsaid.

“Whereas as a nurse,” Erik concluded, “you'd have a much better chance of flying under the radar.”

“And it worked,” Reid agreed. “For a while.” He'd thought he'd been so smart at the time, so clever. Being a doctor had been the dream for a long time, but as he got older and wiser, he'd realised that becoming a nurse instead would let him help far more people in the way he really wanted to.

Charles nodded. “I see. And how do you feel about working as a nurse now? Or a doctor, for that matter.”

Reid honestly felt like an idiot that he hadn't seen this coming sooner. “You want me to work here.”

Sharing a significant look with Erik, Charles soon settled his gaze back on Reid. “I'm not going to lie to you – having any kind of medical professional here permanently would be extremely helpful. Hank is...remarkable but-”

“Hank, that's the foot guy?”

“That's the one, yes,” Charles confirmed with only a slight twitch of his lips. “His areas of expertise are very specific and our numbers are growing and, as I'm sure you can imagine, treating some mutants' medical conditions can be...challenging.”

“I'll bet,” Reid concurred.

“And in case you're concerned,” Charles continued, “we would never dream of asking you to use your powers to treat anyone – only your medical knowledge. One, because it's your body and you get to decide what you do with it and two, because the physical toll it takes is obvious.”

“Generous of you,” Reid scoffed. “Was this your plan all along?”

“No,” Charles answered with apparent sincerity. “We hoped, absolutely. But there was no plan, Reid. The choice is all up to you.”

*

Reid couldn't deny that he was intrigued by the idea. Extremely intrigued. Being at the forefront of mutant medical science in an environment that respected mutants was something he'd never even dreamed of. Reid had always been ambitious, had always wanted to be the best of the best, medically. He'd already done his Bachelors and his Masters as part of his original intention of becoming a Nurse Practitioner.

But did he really want to do this? It'd mean re-certifying at the very least; years of medical training if he decided on the doctor route. But with his qualifications already...if he could find out if there'd been any changes to the list of full practise authority states, maybe that'd be good enough.

He wasn't going to lie to himself – not about this, anyway. The idea of using his degrees instead of just letting them go to waste would definitely make him feel better about everything he'd been through.

He had a lot to think about and when Luke returned to their room later, he could clearly tell something was on Reid's mind. After he'd told him about Charles' offer, Luke almost literally hopped across the room towards him.

“He didn't tell me he was going to offer you a position here,” Luke, who was a terrible liar so Reid knew he was telling the truth, admitted “but I hoped he would.” He smiled happily. “Can you imagine working together, Reid?”

Somewhat amazingly, he could. “Somehow I don't see a lot of work going on if you're involved,” Reid teased, stepping closer. “You'd be a very distracting member of the teaching staff, Mr Snyder.”

Resting his arms over Reid's shoulders, Luke stared at Reid's mouth. “And you'd be a very distracting member of the medical staff, Dr Oliver.”

Reid might have admitted, then, that the kiss that followed was inevitable. But he was too busy kissing Luke to be worried about it.

*

A few days later, Reid was on the phone to Katie while he watched Luke entertain some of the younger kids with his newly-acquired floating/flying skill. They hadn't decided on a name yet, since they hadn't figured out if he was changing the density of objects or changing the gravitational pull – or maybe even something else entirely.

He'd seen Luke do it enough times now and confidently enough that it didn't make his heart pound in his chest like it had the first time he'd seen Luke's head headed towards the ceiling in their room. If Luke was confident in his abilities then so was Reid.

“...and things have calmed down a lot,” Katie continued and Reid remembered he was supposed to be paying attention to her but, even though the subject was important, it was hard to stay completely focused as he watched Luke float effortlessly down onto the well-maintained grass with a huge smile on his face.

Reid still didn't understand how Luke could smile so much.

“Honestly, Reid, the press after the Judd article was mostly in your favour,” Katie said, which finally grabbed all of his attention. “Some of your co-workers came forward afterwards and, while they all agreed you wouldn't be winning any personality contests-”

“Hey!”

“-they all agreed that, for all your bluff and bluster, you cared about your patients. A lot. And all you wanted to do was help. I mean,” she paused, “those who already hated mutants were going to hate you anyway. But some of the undecideds...they're siding with you.” Reid really didn't know how he was supposed to feel about any of that. “Of course on the downside,” Katie pointed out, “thanks to Mr Judd, now everyone knows what your mutant power is.”

Yes, they did, and frankly that fact was also having an impact on his decision to probably take Charles up on his job offer. It went beyond people tracking him down, begging him to heal them or their loved ones. Reid knew better than to think that the government wouldn't come for him in an unprotected environment. His power was too useful, too valuable to the right people – or wrong people. And maybe Luke had a point, maybe staying here, with some 50ish other mutants, each with their own amazing abilities, was a bit like hiding away. But it was also better than being a lab rat for the government or anyone else rich enough to get their hands on him.

“Anyway,” she went on, “when do I get to meet this Luke that you keep going on about?”

“I do not keep going on about him.” Reid rolled his eyes at the very idea, then saw Luke float one of the kids a few inches off the ground at their urging, unable to help the small smile that appeared on his face as he took in Luke's excitement.

“Reid, you were practically babbling, it was adorable,” Katie insisted, which was undoubtedly a filthy lie. “Anyway, are non-mutants allowed to visit the school?”

“I doubt Charles would mind, but some of the people here have...very strong reasons to hate non-mutants.” That was putting it mildly. “We'd probably have to come to-”

And suddenly Charles' voice was in his head.  
_  
All adults report to my office immediately. All students to their rooms._

Reid was still trying to process the fact that he, and apparently everyone else, had just had Charles' voice in their head at the same time – how powerful was he? - when he saw that no one else had any issue with it at all, immediately doing as they were told.

Luke was hustling some of the younger kids towards the building, before jogging over to Reid.

Katie's voice was asking if he was okay. “Gotta go,” he said, “call you back later.”

Ending the call, he stepped towards Luke. “This gonna be a jet situation?”

“Probably,” Luke confirmed, heading quickly towards Charles' office with Reid in tow. “And this time,” he said decisively, “I'm going with them.”

Well, fuck. Now that meant Reid had to go, too.

The adults that had made it there already were clustered around the small TV at one side of Charles' room and though Reid couldn't really see anything, he could hear enough to know what the issue was.

 _The Brotherhood_.

Apparently they were rampaging their way through New York City, destroying people and buildings indiscriminately.

“I'm coming,” Erik snarled.

“Obviously,” Charles remarked. “I have to say their management has really gone downhill since Victor took over.” Reid didn't get what was obviously a joke, but it fell flat anyway and Charles made a face in apology.

“I'm coming, too,” Luke announced. “It's time.”

Charles studied him. “If you're sure. I know your control has improved by leaps and bounds.”

And because it seemed like he didn't have any other choice... “Yeah,” Reid ground out, “count me in, too.”

Erik regarded him sourly. “Your power has no offensive capability. What use are you on the battlefield?”

“Well,” Reid began smartly, “when someone no doubt hands you your ass, I can sew it back on afterwards.”

“Reid,” Luke warned.

Charles held a hand up, letting Luke know not to worry. “Erik has a point, Reid. Your abilities are amazing, but-”

“Charles,” Irene interrupted, making everyone turn towards her, where she was facing a window she couldn't see out of. “Let him go. He needs to go.” After a moment, she turned in their direction. “I'll look after the kids.”

After a moments hesitation, Charles ordered everyone who was going to get suited up and head for the jet.

Reid blinked in surprise, facing Luke. “Just like that?”

“What Irene says, goes,” Luke confirmed, eyeing Reid as they headed out of the office. “You must be essential to the mission somehow.”

“Well, _obviously_ ,” Reid agreed. “But, just for the record, I refuse to wear that ridiculous uniform.”

*

Reid ended up having to wear the ridiculous uniform. It was the only type of clothing they had that would offer him any protection at all and he quietly seethed as he sat next to Luke on the jet. He should've been more amazed at the technological marvel he was flying in, but he was honestly more concerned with trying not to squeak as he shifted in his seat.

Even Luke didn't look particularly good in the uniform, and if Luke Snyder didn't look hot in a skin-tight leather facsimile, you knew you'd really screwed up somewhere.

As fast as the jet travelled, it didn't take long to get to NYC – the attack was basically in their own back yard, something Erik suspected was deliberate – and as they drew closer to their destination, Reid could admit, at least to himself, that he was focusing on anything he could other than the fact that he was about to head out into what was no doubt a life-or-death situation.

“Hey,” he said quietly, just for Luke's ears. “Be careful.”

Luke had been looking stubborn and nervous all at once, but at Reid's words his gaze softened and he quietly grabbed Reid's hand. At least they weren't wearing gloves. “Yeah. You too.”

As the jet came down to land, Erik briefed them on their plan of attack. Reid's part was simple - “Don't get in the way.”

And honestly, once they disembarked, he understood where Erik was coming from for once. He couldn't attack anyone or defend anything. He couldn't even fly or teleport himself anywhere to get into a useful position. So, for once, Reid did what he was told. He kept out of the way, tried not to make himself an obvious target – though the bright yellow uniform didn't help with that particular aim – and tried to help civilians escape out of what was feeling like, frankly, hell on Earth.

Reid had never been in a situation like it; even the car accident didn't compare. There were toppled buildings, rubble and blood everywhere. Dust and smoke floated in the air as electrical fires ignited and started spreading, even as water gushed onto the streets from broken water pipes.

Most of the fighting seemed to be happening in the air, which Reid found hugely unfair. Reassuringly Luke seemed to be holding his own whenever Reid caught a glimpse of him, propelling himself around the air like he'd be doing it his entire life, using his powers to throw anything that wasn't tied down towards _The Brotherhood_. 

Reid had just freed a young man who'd been trapped by some rubble – fortunately for him, no life-threatening injuries – when Luke landed next to him.

“Reid,” Luke said urgently, face covered in grime, “Raven's taken a hit and isn't getting back up. She's up there.” He pointed towards the top of a building that was still standing and, for now at least, didn't look like it was going anywhere anytime soon.

Luke obviously wanted her checked out. “Okay,” Reid said, “get me up there then.”

Luke seemed surprised for a moment, though Reid didn't have the faintest clue why. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Reid confirmed, “Teleportation Woman-”

“Clarice.”

“-is fighting that thing with the claws so...unless you want me to climb the thirty or so floors to the top of the building...get me up there. You got this.”

“I know,” Luke agreed. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world, like he could do it without thinking as he lifted one hand up, splayed the palm out towards Reid and suddenly the two of them were in the air, moving faster the further up they travelled.

It was, without a doubt, the freakiest thing Reid had ever experienced. While Luke had the utmost control – Reid was perfectly balanced the entire time, didn't move a single millimetre in a direction Luke didn't want him to go in – it didn't feel like anything was holding him up at all and he was simply floating of his own free will.

Later, Reid was going to make a point of telling Luke how amazing he was. For now, he concentrated on the matter at hand, and when they touched down on the top of the building, he headed straight for Raven's slumped body.

Luke didn't wait for news, just got back to the matter at hand, which Reid appreciated.

It didn't take him long to determine – from what he could tell, of course – that Raven was going to be fine. At least for now. Her pulse was strong, her eyes were reactive and her airways were clear. Hopefully she'd just been knocked unconscious and though that could cause serious issues, he doubted she was at any risk-

An anguished yell suddenly made Reid stand, spin around and stumble towards the edge of the building because while he'd never heard Luke make a noise that sounded anything like that, _he knew it was Luke's voice_.

Dread raced down his spine as his frantic search of the skyline finally found him. Luke and Alex were on top of another building, Alex was kneeling over Luke and Luke...wasn't moving.

And Reid was trapped on top of this building with someone who didn't even fucking _matter_ because what was the point of saving anyone if he couldn't save _Luke_?

Where the fuck was Clarice? He was speaking before he even knew he intended to. “Somebody get me over there, somebody get me over there, _somebody fucking get me_ -”

Finally, fucking finally, Clarice was there and a moment later he was kneeling down next to Luke. “Hey,” he greeted warmly. “It's going to be okay.” Clarice vanished immediately, probably to help with the fighting that was still going on elsewhere.

Alex wasn't helping matters at all, tears in his eyes as he knelt at Luke's other side. “I didn't...I'd never...it was an _accident_. She threw him and he was trying to find his balance and...it was an _accident_ ,” he repeated and if Alex didn't stop blubbing, Reid was going to throw him off the top of this building himself.

There was a body a few feet away, no doubt _The Brotherhood_ member they'd been fighting. In any case, she'd been dealt with. Right now she was inconsequential.

All that mattered now was Luke, who'd been hit by friendly fire and had a hole in his side that was too big for anyone to recover from.

“Don't...lie to me,” Luke managed, blood staining his lips. “Know I can count on you to...tell the truth.”

Reid nodded, absolutely certain. “And I'm not lying to you now. You're going to be fine.” Reaching for Luke's hand, he grasped it in his own.

It took a few moments – probably the shock and blood loss – but Luke's eyes widened in horror when he realised Reid's intention. “Reid, no!” He coughed, uselessly trying to pull his hand away. “Don't do this.”

Tightening his grasp on Luke's hand, Reid smiled down at him. “I love you,” he said, and then he closed his eyes.

“Reid!”

_“Are you mommy's special little boy?”_

_Reid rolled his eyes. “Mom, you know it makes you sound really creepy when you say that, right? I'm not a kid.”_

_“Sure you're not,” Mom teased and honest to God, Reid knew she said these things just to antagonise him. “You're an old man. So smart and wise already. Sometimes you make me feel like the kid.”_

_Dad laughed from the driver's seat and Reid went back to flipping through his Science book. “I despair for this family. If he's the adult and you're the child, what does that make me?”_

_Sitting back in the passenger seat properly, Mom smiled across at Dad. “Well, obviously-” She stopped as she gasped suddenly, leaning forward and yelling, “John, look out!”_

“Reid, you need to let go. Let go. _Please_ let go.”  
_  
“-what use is it now? Where was this super-special ability of yours when your parents died in the accident and left you with me, huh?"_

_Reid gasped at the mention of his parents and started backing away. "Uncle Angu-"_

_"Where were you when my sister was bleeding to death on the side of the road?"_

_And Reid was there again, back in the nightmare, trying to get Mom to wake up, pressing his hands over the pooling blood that wouldn't **stop**. "I tried to stop her dying, I did, I swear-"_

_Grabbing hold of Reid, Uncle Angus shook him by the shoulders. "What use are you **now**?"_

“This isn't your fault. You don't need to fix this.”

_“-don't tell my dad, Nurse Oliver,” Annie pleaded, face crumpling in despair, “please don't tell my-”_

_“Hey, quit the waterworks and the dramatics,” Reid ordered, which at least had the intended effect of calming her down. Glancing towards the door to make sure it was shut, he stepped closer to the bed. “As far as I'm concerned, any...abilities you have are your business and your business alone.” She was some kind of water manipulator, if the way she'd instinctively cleaned up the water he'd knocked over was any indication._

_Sniffing, she looked at him hopefully.”Are you...like me? Are you special too?”_

_“That's some assumption,” he said brusquely, because he'd learned a long time ago not to just go around telling anyone about what he could do. But then she used the eyes and wobbled her lower lip and the kid was a master manipulator of people as well as water, Reid had to give her that._

_Even his bitter, twisted heart strings weren't immune.“But I'll tell you what,” Reid sighed, “if this new drug therapy of Ramirez's doesn't work and it looks like you need...help,” he said carefully, then made a point of deliberately glancing around the room as if to make sure they weren't being watched, “maybe I'll use my own superpowers.”_

“Reid, please! I don't have the strength to...Alex, make him let go.”

“And let him stop healing you? You'll die!”

“But _he'll_ die if you don't-”

_-as his back hit something behind him, hard, Reid staggered under Mr Judd's assault. “I'm just trying to help her!”_

_Mr Judd was having none of it, grabbing Reid around the throat and pushing him up against the wall. “The last thing my little girl needs is some mutant freak messing about with her insides.”_

_Reid clawed at the hands around his throat. “I was healing her, you idiot.”_

_“I'm the idiot?” Mr Judd asked, squeezing tighter as Reid gasped for breath. “I'm not the one who got caught being a mutant **freak** and doing God knows what to the patients here. Taking advantage...you should be disgusted with yoursel-”_

“Luke, I'm telling you, that hand's not going anywhere.”

“Try _harder_.”

_“Happy Birthday, Mr Grumpy Pants.”_

_Sighing, Reid took in the single cupcake now sitting in front of him and the forlorn candle stuck in the top. “How did you find out?”_

_“It's my job to know these things,” was all Katie said. “Come on, then, blow it out.”_

_Reid really did like a good cupcake. So he rolled his eyes – mostly for effect, admittedly – and-_

“Reid, I love you, okay? I love you. And I do not want you to die. Let _go_.”

_-greeted far too enthusiastically, stopping a few feet from Reid, looking entirely too appealing in the sunlight with his skin flushed from exercise, still slightly out of breath. The tiny shorts helped - or didn't, depending on your perspective - with the image. "You're here for the Professor," he said knowingly._

_For once, it took Reid's brain a few moments to catch up with what was happening. "Yes," he blurted out finally. If they were students here... "Are you reading my mind?" The idea was still as disturbing as the first time he'd met Charles Xavier. The thought that anyone could look into his mind without his permission..._

_"No," the guy replied, grinning in amusement. "You're just..." he looked Reid up and down and somehow it was almost innocent. Almost. "You're special - like me."_

“Reid? Reid! Shit, Alex, I don't think he's breathing, I think he's...he's...”

“Luke? Are you okay? Should you be standing? Luke...what are you doing?”

“ _Ending_ this.”

_“-have a question for you, Dr Oliver,” Luke grinned from mere inches away._

_They were – for all intents and purposes – cuddling on Luke's bed and though Reid didn't think he'd cuddled anything or anyone since he'd been a kid, he wasn't about to stop. Not when Luke's relaxed face was so close and he couldn't hide his obvious delight at the idea of calling Reid a doctor._

_Reid could've pointed out it was highly unlikely he was ever going to actually become a doctor, but decided it wasn't worth saying anything if it risked removing that smile from Luke's face._

_So he played along again. “Yes, Mr Snyder?”_

_Shifting even closer towards him, Luke only paused to impishly say, “Wanna make out?”_

_Reid had never known anyone who was as fun and ridiculous as Luke. So, yeah, yeah he wanted to make out, despite the fact they were both actual adults._

_And he kind of wanted to keep doing everything forever with Luke Snyder._


	4. Chapter 4

Reid had honestly expected to never wake up again. 

He'd known it was the end. Luke had been too badly injured and Reid had loved him too much to do anything else but give his life for Luke's. He hadn't even been sad about it. Obviously, he would've far preferred that they both survived, but in the choice between him and Luke, there was no decision to be made. There was only one route he could've possibly taken.

As long as Luke survived – knowing that Luke would survive – Reid had headed to his death a happy man.

So when he groggily blinked his eyes open an indeterminate amount of time later and saw the Luke in question unmoving on a bed a few feet away from his own...to say that he was surprised was an understatement.

“Luke,” he found himself saying and he was trying to lurch out of bed because he needed to _check_ , he needed to _see_ but it was as if his body did not want to cooperate as it thumped into the IV stand he was apparently hooked up to. And...oh, great. Yeah, that was a catheter.

“Careful, careful,” a voice said, and it was Hank, pushing him back down onto the bed. “He's fine. _You're_ fine, amazingly. But you both need to rest, so stay in bed or I'll get Erik to make sure you follow doctor's orders.”

That did not sound at all appealing to Reid, who did actually listen to the guy – his body felt too exhausted to do much else – but at least started to relax when he realised he could see Luke's chest moving as he breathed. Completely unassisted apparently, though he was connected to his own IV. “Are you even an actual doctor?” Hank looked twenty if he was a day.

Hank was already busy pulling on a pair of disposable gloves. “Not the question you want to ask the guy who's about to remove your catheter.”

For once in his life, Reid decided to shut up.

Once that unpleasantness was out of the way, Reid carefully rolled onto his side and resumed his observation of Luke. “How long?”

“Almost a week,” Hank replied, marking something on a clipboard, before following Reid's gaze. “He's really going to be fine,” Hank assured him, lowering the clipboard. “Much like you, his body's exhausted beyond normal human levels. He still suffered a huge trauma – despite the fact that you healed it – and he used his own powers to a greater degree than he ever had before.”

That made sense. “I guess that fight took it out of him.”

Hank suddenly raised the clipboard back up and focused on it suspiciously. “Right. Yeah.”

Hank refused to give anything else away, though, and it was only later, when Charles came to visit, that Reid learned the truth.

They were both in a matching set in wheels – though Charles' was obviously more technologically advanced – as they sat next to Luke's bed, staring down at him.

“When he thought you were dead,” Charles began carefully, “he took care of _The Brotherhood_ single-handedly. They just...disintegrated,” he continued. “We think he...atomised them. Pulled them apart at the subatomic level. In a matter of seconds, every single one of them was just...gone.”

Swallowing, Reid tried to take it all in. “Did you know he could do that?”

“I don't think he even knew he could do that,” was apparently all Charles could say. “He's far more powerful than any of us ever realised.”

Reid really hoped Luke didn't hate himself when he woke up.

Charles, apparently, wasn't finished. “Reid...there's something else you should know. Something else he'd probably prefer hearing from you.”

What the hell had happened _now_? “What is it?”

*

Luke didn't wake up the next day, or the day after that. Reid spent his time alternately gaining his strength back, texting Katie and keeping Luke company. From what Katie had said, news helicopters that had dared to get close enough to the fighting in New York had caught footage of most of what had happened on that roof – albeit from a distance.

“You've got your own fan club,” Katie had told him, delighted, “there are more than a few people who found what you did incredibly romantic. Me included,” she added, because she clearly delighted in torturing him.

“There is nothing remotely romantic about desperately trying to save someone's life in the middle of a battlefield.”

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” she mocked and Reid was intending to instruct her on her failings some more, but as it sunk in more and more that they'd been filmed on top of that building...

“Did they see?” he asked. “What Luke did after?”

Katie hesitated. “There are only theories, really. It's not like you can actually see Luke's powers. But he was...so angry. And then they all just...disappeared.”

So, yeah, people knew what he'd done. “Is he in trouble?” They should be protected here, at the school, but if they needed to really go into hiding they could always ask Clarice to drop them off in Timbuktu or-

“I don't think so,” Katie said honestly. “I'm not going to lie to you, there are people saying how dangerous he is, but for the most part people are just happy he stopped _The Brotherhood_. He didn't hurt anyone else, just...”

“Mutants,” Reid sighed. “He only hurt other mutants.”

“Yeah,” Katie agreed sadly.

That figured. People didn't give a shit as long as 'normal' humans didn't get hurt. It worked out largely to their advantage of course, but it still pissed him off.

Later that day, he was reading one of the trashy gay romances from Luke's book collection – when Luke finally woke up, he might even tell him he'd read it – when the sound of footsteps made Reid look up.

Finally. Lowering the book, Reid glared at her. Not that she'd notice. “I wondered if you'd ever turn up.”

Irene walked straight to Luke's bed without hesitating. “I hear he's doing well.”

“He is,” Reid confirmed. “Thanks to me. And you knew it was going to happen.”

“You can save the accusations,” Irene told him bluntly. “That's not how...” she gestured towards her head, “...it works. If only it did.” Her face looked grim. “It's rarely that specific, sometimes it's just a feeling, sometimes I have no idea what's going to happen at all. So, if anything...” she let the sentence trail off and Reid could certainly pick up the implication.

If she hadn't told Charles to let him come along, Luke would've died.

“Thank you,” Reid said, then, because he could be rude, didn't suffer fools gladly and largely loathed small talk, but if it hadn't been for Irene he would've never had the chance to save Luke. That came before everything, even his pride.

“Can I come in yet?” Raven's voice asked from outside the open doorway.

Shaking her head, Irene called out her response. “Yes, the moment's over. Though you would've ruined it anyway.”

Raven didn't seem to care, quickly making her way towards them. “Hey, so Reid,” she announced, “I like you a lot more now. You know, after what you did for Luke.”

Reid wondered why her opinion of him should even matter. “Okay. Cool?” He shrugged. “How's the...?” he gestured towards her head.

“Oh, it was just a light concussion, I barely even notice it now.” She paused for a moment. “Yeah, I should probably thank you for that, shouldn't I? Anyway,” Raven moved on, no hint of a thank you actually crossing her lips, before turning to Irene. “Lunch?”

*

Reid didn't know if Luke had made a sound or if it was just good timing on his part, but sometime in the middle of the night, Reid opened his eyes to see Luke staring at him.

He'd been able to move around easily for days now, so Reid was next to him in mere moments, throwing himself down into the chair there and reaching for Luke's hand. “Hey, hey, it's okay. You're okay.”

Luke just kept staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Everything's alright,” Reid promised. “Don't try and move – trust me, you won't like Hank's bedside manner.”

Luke swallowed and his voice was rough when he spoke, but it was there. “And _you're_ okay?” The concern in his voice was palpable.

“I'm fine,” Reid swore.

Sniffing, Luke smiled at him. “Good.” Then he glared at him. “ _Asshole_.”

And then he passed out.

*

Luke was uncharacteristically quiet for the next few days. Much like Reid, the first couple of days were spent largely in a wheelchair as he started gaining back his strength. He didn't really want much in the way of visitors, though the kids he taught were desperate to come in and see him.

They were both relieved when they could move back into their own room a few days after that, though on that first night back, neither one of them got much sleep.

They'd pushed their beds together – physically, with no powers – and Luke was cocooned next to him in the middle of the night when he finally talked about it.

“I don't feel bad about it,” Luke admitted quietly. “I snuffed out their lives in an instant, I didn't even have to think about it. I just wanted them gone, wanted them to _suffer_ because they were the reason you were even there in the first place and it...happened. That's what bothers me the most.”

Reid took the time to process Luke's words. “So you're upset that you _don't_ feel upset that you killed them?”

“Such a way with words,” Luke teased, before his face turned serious. “I'd do it again, too. Maybe I'm more like Damian than even I realised.”

Reid wasn't about to get into a debate about whose actions were worse – he really didn't know – but he had to do something to try and make Luke feel better. “You know that no one here is going to judge you.”

Luke didn't hesitate. “Maybe they should.”

“Maybe,” Reid conceded, “but they won't, and I sure as hell never will. Not about this. Luke, you were trapped in extraordinary circumstances and God knows none of us ever claimed to be perfect-”

“Not even you?” Luke smiled with tears in his eyes.

“Not even me,” Reid agreed fondly. “None of us are perfect, especially where love's involved. You're only human, or,” he shrugged, “more than human. Cut yourself some slack.”

Sighing, Luke shifted around until he was staring up at the ceiling. “So love, huh?”

“Yep, love,” Reid responded as he moved to share the view. “It bites the big one.”

Luke finally started laughing, if quietly, and when he rolled and pressed his head against Reid's shoulder, Reid closed his eyes and smiled.

*

Almost a week later, they were out on the grounds getting some much-needed rays. Luke was almost entirely back to normal – physically at least – and was currently horsing around with some of the younger students. Alex was there, too, helping out, and though he still looked awkward, at least he was there at all.

Alex had been avoiding Luke since he'd woken up, no doubt deliberately as they'd been easy to avoid, what with being in only one of two places 90% of the time. Fortunately, just the other day they'd bumped into him in a corridor. Alex had immediately started backing away, his face already scrunching up emotionally as he stumbled out an apology. Luke had put a stop to the entire spectacle by stepping forward, throwing his arms around Alex and pulling him into a hug that lasted for a long, long time.

Alex had started showing up a lot after that, checking how they were doing, seeing if either of them needed anything. Reid had found it annoying at first, then realised he almost always had someone nearby to go make him a sandwich, and took advantage of that fact at every opportunity.

Things were far from perfect. Reid was all too aware of Luke's nightmares, where he would wake up and frantically scrabble at the bed clothes to get to Reid's body to make sure it was whole...but. Seeing how healthy Luke was looking, how happy he apparently appeared, and how much like himself he was acting, Reid knew it was time.

“I get it if you get pissed at me,” Reid began over lunch later, causing Luke to pause mid-chew, tip his head to one side and raise a suspicious eyebrow. “But there's something you need to know. Something happened that I didn't think you were ready to deal with until now.”

Eyes widening, Luke swallowed the mouthful and put his cutlery down. “What is it?”

Reid fiddled with his water bottle for a moment, before placing it to one side. “After what happened, in New York. After you appeared on the news. Someone contacted the school.” From what Charles had said they got a lot of crank calls, a lot of the time. This one seemed to check out.

Reid met Luke's gaze. “A man named Holden Snyder.”

*

Plans had been confirmed, arrangements had been made. Luke was practically vibrating out of his skin and Reid could only watch from the doorway, be available if Luke wanted anything from him.

Noise from behind him made Reid turn to see Charles and Erik making their way towards him.

“How's he doing?” Charles asked, nodding towards Luke who was busy rearranging the book shelf for the fourth time.

“Same,” Reid said, because it was the truth. He made a point of glancing at his non-existent watch. “She's welcome to turn up any time now.”

“Clarice isn't a train,” Erik warned, just as cheery as he always was, “she doesn't run on your schedule. She's an indiv-”

“-vidual, I know,” Reid snapped. “She's just so...handy.”

Charles, no doubt the master of trying to smooth things over, cleared his throat. “Not much longer, and then this will all work out. Especially as you'll be there, Reid. I know you'll always be there for him.”

Reid couldn't help but frown at the realisation that those words sounded suspiciously final. “You know this isn't his goodbye, right? He's going to be thrilled to see his dad, but he's never going to leave this place.”

“Of course not,” Charles agreed, before pausing. “And what about you?”

Reid blinked. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” Charles smiled. “You never did respond to the offer.”

“Well, you know what, Charles?” Reid began. “What with nearly dying and recuperating – yeah, I've been a little busy.” Hell, since New York, he and Luke hadn't even discussed their own plans.

Not that there was any doubt, really. Katie had already resigned herself to losing a client. The writing had never been a calling – just a means to an end.

And there was still a lot to work out – how his role at the school would actually work, the fact that Luke hadn't used his powers at all since New York, the fact that Reid was pretty sure that, given his past, Luke had never had sex and Reid wasn't about to pressure him into it – but.

But.

Reid didn't know things would work out. But he had _faith_ that they would.

He was _optimistic_.

And that had everything to do with the man currently separating books into _Trashy Gay Romance: Happy Ending_ and _Trashy Gay Romance: Sad Ending_.

Reid had certainly never imagined himself ending up feeling this way about anyone or anything – had laughed at the very idea. But here he was nonetheless and he'd come too far to turn away now.

“Tell you what. If you can work on a new colour scheme for the uniforms,” Reid finally conceded, watching as Luke scratched the side of his face, “I'll think about it.”

~FINIS


End file.
